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Tel aviv tech

Judy Siegel-Itzkovich reports:

Tel Aviv University has hit the jackpot, with three of its scientists included in the list of 50 of the world's leading innovators in the coming issue of one of the world's leading science magazines, Scientific American.

Prof. Eshel Ben-Jacob of TAU's faculty of exact sciences and his research assistant Dr. Itay Baruchi were chosen for their innovative work in brain research and their success in creating a memory- and information-processing neurochip made of living neurons. Ben-Jacob told The Jerusalem Post he was very happy his and Baruchi's work was being recognized, especially since when he first sent an article on it for publication to the prestigious journal Nature along with recommendations from three Nobel Prize laureates, it was rejected on the grounds of "not being of general interest." However, last spring, it was published in the American Physical Society's journal Physical Review.

Prof. Beka Solomon was selected for the development of a novel therapeutic approach in the form of an experimental nasal spray for treatment of Alzheimer's disease, based on friendly bacterial viruses that are able to overcome the drawbacks of other ongoing approaches.

Israelis have been making the list for the past few years.

This is the sixth year that the journal's board of editors has selected the 50 top innovators. No other Israelis were included in the 2008 list, and only two Israelis were previously on the list; they were Dr. Shulamit Levenberg of the Technion (2006), Prof. Ehud Shapira of the Weizmann Institute of Science (2006) and Prof. Micha Asher of the Hebrew University (2004).

Science might still take a back seat to Israel hatred and politics.

The Israeli edition of Scientific American, produced by ORT-Israel, is due to publish the list in February, but it isn't known whether the Arabic version published in Kuwait will choose to omit the Israeli achievement.

Crossposted on Yourish.

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