Following the Senate's decision to approve the Memorandum of Understanding with China, the Technion's Executive Committee approved the appointment of Professor Paul Feigin to a new position in the Technion's management: the Vice President for Strategic Projects who will be responsible for the projects in China and New York
Last week, the St. Technion approved, by an overwhelming majority, the cooperation with Shantou University in the Guangdong province of China, for the establishment of the joint technological institute. The decision states that "the memorandum of understanding, signed between the Technion and Shantou University, on September 29.9.13, XNUMX, will form the basis of the detailed agreement between the institutions for the establishment of the Technion-Guangdong Institute of Technology (TGIT) and that the members of the Senate congratulate the president and the management of the Technion for the initiative and flight in creating the strategic relationship with Shantou University and the Li Ka Shing Philanthropic Foundation.”
Following the Senate's decision to approve the Memorandum of Understanding with China, the Technion's Executive Committee approved the appointment of Professor Paul Feigin to a new position in the Technion's management: Vice President for Strategic Projects.
For the past six years, Professor Feigin served as senior vice president of the Technion and led the international agreements for the establishment of the Technion-Cornell Jacobs Innovation Center in New York and the establishment of the Technion-Guangdong Institute of Technology in China.
Professor Feigin, a statistician by training, served in a variety of management positions at the Technion, including: Dean of the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management, member of the board of directors of the Technion institution and member of the executive committee.
"The Technion's international collaborations with universities around the world contribute to the realization of its vision, to be among the elite group of the world's leading universities in science and technology," said Technion President Professor Peretz Lavi. "Professor Feigin, who contributed a lot to the creation of international collaborations and the establishment of the Institute in China and the Technion-Cornell Innovation Center in New York, will continue to promote these agreements and bring them to completion. I thank him for his great contribution to the Technion in the last six years as senior vice president and wish him success in his new position."
The Weizmann Institute will establish a national research center for personalized medicine
The Weizmann Institute of Science is currently founding National Research Center for Personalized Medicine On behalf of Nancy and Stephen Grand. The center will serve the entire research community in Israel in the field of life sciences and biomedicine, including researchers from academia, doctors engaged in medical research in medical center laboratories, and researchers in the biomed industry in Israel.
The accelerated establishment of the center - aimed at realizing the future vision of medicine, where treatment is adapted not only to curing a particular disease, but to the unique genetic characteristics of each person - is made possible thanks to the generous donation of some of the Institute's friends. Personalized medicine will be able, for example, to adjust drug treatment to each patient according to their genetic characteristics, so that maximum medical efficiency is achieved, while causing minimal side effects.
This future is based on advanced research technologies and methods, some of which already exist today. Among other things, innovative and efficient experimental systems, which enable large-scale research of thousands of genes and proteins, or prediction of reactions to drugs in a very short time.
The center includes four units, which are currently operating in several temporary laboratories around the Weizmann Institute of Science campus: the Crown Genomics Institute, founded by the Crown family of Chicago; De Botton Protein Mapping Institute, founded by Miles de Botton from Great Britain; the Institute for Bioinformatics named after Ilana and Pascal Manto, founded by Ilana and Pascal Manto from Israel and France; and the Maurice and Vivian Wahl Institute for Drug Discovery, established by the Maurice and Vivian Wahl Foundation of Great Britain. Within a year, the four units will be located in the "Tower of the Sun" building, which is currently undergoing renovation in preparation for a change of purpose under the auspices of the Wolfson Foundation, Great Britain. The head of the center is Dr. Berta Strolovitch, a graduate of the institute, who before her arrival served as vice president for basic research at the global "Marek" company, a position in which she established an advanced center of excellence for drug discovery. She brings with her her rich experience in team management and advanced and effective research methods for drug development.
For the purpose of establishing the center, the Weizmann Institute of Science raised donations totaling 120 million dollars, from private donors and philanthropic foundations. Of these, a generous donation of $50 million was recently received from Nancy and Stephen Grand of San Francisco, and it was made through the Institute's American Board. Nancy and Stephen Grand have been generous donors and supporters of the Weizmann Institute of Science for years, and the entire new center will henceforth be named after them.
Prof. Daniel Zeifman, president of the Weizmann Institute of Science: "The extraordinary contribution of Steven and Nancy Grand, along with the other supporters and founders of the center, is a rare example of the mobilization of friends of the institute to realize a vision that will bring about a significant change in the future of biomedical research in Israel. Since the center serves the entire research community in Israel, the impact of the research that will be done within the walls of the laboratories at the Weizmann Institute of Science will be felt throughout the country and beyond its borders."
