Technion Champion Detroiter Larry Jackier heads international board of Israel's high-tech university. Bill Carroll Special to the Jewish News A Larry Jackier of West Bloomfield is the first Detroiter to become chairman of Technion's international board of governors. t the ripe old age of 60, Israel is still young compared to its most famous university — the Israel Institute of Technology, known throughout the Jewish world as Technion. The school was launched in 1924 in what then was Palestine, 24 years before Israel was born in 1948, and now is nearing its 85th anniver- sary. "Many people are surprised to learn Technion was under way long before the State of Israel came into being; it's a marvel- ous place of research and learning and has been very instrumental to the nation's well being all these years:' said Larry Jackier of West Bloomfield, who late last year became chairman of Technion's international board of governors, the first Detroiter in that role. "It's amazing how, way back then, some- one realized it would be necessary to har- ness all that Jewish brainpower and creativ- ity,' Jackier said. "Technion now stands as a world leader in high-tech and other cutting- edge fields. Without it, Israel would still be a semi-sophisticated, agrarian society instead of a leading player in the global high-tech market. The school's basic mission contin- ues to be education and research in science and technology." Technion is an oval-shaped campus of 85 buildings over 300 acres on the slopes of the Carmel Mountains overlooking Haifa Bay. Current enrollment is 13,500 students with 826 faculty members, some of whom have won Nobel prizes. But there were only 17 graduates, in civil engineering and architecture, in the first graduating class in 1929; and they were thrilled by the involvement of famed Jewish scientist Albert Einstein, who visited the campus several times. He was president of the German Technion Society, a forerun- ner of sorts of the current New York-based American Technion Society, which now rais- es about $85 million a year for the school. "The money is put to good use," Jackier stressed, pointing to development of heart stents, cancer-fighting chemotherapies, electric field therapy for brain tumors, Parkinson's disease drugs, stem-cell research, a tiny camera that can be swal- Technion Innovations Dr. Rafi Beyar, former dean of Technion's medical school – the only one of Israel's seven universities with such a school – is credited with devel- oping the heart stent, a metal mesh tube used to prop open clogged arter- ies. It's one of many Technion medical breakthroughs. This is how Technion describes some of them: • Repairing broken hearts: Clusters of embryonic stem cells are isolated and coaxed to grow into any tissue, from skin for treating burns, to neurons for aging brains. • New muscle with hustle: Already a godsend for burn victims, tissue implants made from scratch in a laboratory, sculpted on a tiny three- dimensional plastic scaffold with a built-in supply of blood vessels, can replace or repair damaged muscle tissue. • Disarming cancer's defenses: Technion scientists have found ways to delay tough-spreading breast, colon and leukemia cancer growth A40 August 21 a 2008 and have developed cancer-fighting chemo- therapies. • Electric field therapy for brain tumors: Low-intensity electri- cal fields delivered via insulated electrodes on the scalp can more than double the sur- vival rates for people with a common type of brain tumor. The therapy disrupts cancer cell division, but leaves normal cells unharmed. • Parkinson's Drug: FDA-approved Azilect (Rasagiline) is halting the death of brain cells causing the disease. A derivative of this drug is putting off Alzheimer's disease symp- toms. • A lemon-fresh idea for fighting asth- ma: An inhalant made from limonene, the main component in the essential oil of citrus fruits, can benefit asthma sufferers. • Respiration monitor: Development of a novel, non-invasive device for detecting early-stage respiratory irregularities in premature babies, children and adults receiving inten- sive care. • Autoimmune disease: A vaccine that boosts the body's defenses, amplify- ing production of antibodies against the protein, IP-10. • Forever young: Technion scientists won the Nobel Prize for discovering Ubiquitin, the component involved in the aging of cells. - Bill Carroll Left: Technion professor Moussa Youdim holds the Parkinson's drug Azilect he developed and green tea, which he found to contain an antioxidant that staves off Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Middle: Profs. Avram Hershko and Aaron Ciechanover won the Nobel Prize in 2004 for their research on how the body destroys unwanted proteins, a process known as the ubiquitin system. Right: Dr. Lior Gepstein has coaxed embryonic stem cells to develop into heart cells and subsequently into beat- ing heart muscle.