Dr. Shulamit Levenberg and Dr. Hosem Haik will receive an award at a ceremony at the Elysee Palace and UNESCO headquarters

Presidents Peres and Sarkozy will present awards for excellence in science to two young scientists from the Technion * Dr. Shulamit Levenberg will receive the award for her research in the field of embryonic stem cells and Dr. Hosem Haik in the field of early detection of cancer

Presidents Shimon Peres and Nicolas Sarkozy will award two young scientists from the Technion with the prestigious prize of the Israel-France Fund for promising scientists, in a festive ceremony to be held on March 11 at the Elysee Palace. The next day, another ceremony will be held at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris.

The two Technion researchers who won the award are Dr. Shulamit Levenberg from the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering and Dr. Hosem Haik from the Faculty of Chemical Engineering. Dr. Levenberg will receive the award for her research in the field of embryonic stem cells and Dr. Haik for developing an "electronic nose" that can detect cancer in its early stages.

Along with the two scientists from the Technion, two French scientists will receive the award.

The president of the Technion, Professor Yitzhak Apluig, congratulated Dr. Levenberg and Dr. Haik for the important achievement and the honor they brought to the Technion. "Once again it has been proven that the many efforts that the Technion invests in recruiting a promising new faculty of researchers and young scientists are bearing fruit," he said. "Dr. Levenberg and Dr. Haik's winning of the prestigious award came less than a month after seven young scientists from the Technion were included among the 300 most promising scientists of the European Union and received, each, research grants totaling about one million euros. The Technion will continue its efforts to bring talented Israeli scientists back to Israel, upon completion of their post-doctoral studies abroad. This will ensure the Technion's status in the future as one of the leading universities in the world."

In the photo, Dr. Shulamit Levenberg (above), Dr. Husam Hayek (below)