The Biophysics Community

The Technion recently held a retreat aimed at bringing together investigators and students involved in basic and applied biophysics and consolidating the Technion biophysics community. 14 faculty members from various faculties gave talks at the meeting, which also included time an opportunities for interactions and brain storming.

Biophysics is a broad field of research based on physical theories and methods to understand how biological systems function. Nowadays, dozens of researchers at the Technion incorporate biophysics into their research, but they belong to different faculties, so mutual acquaintance is limited. In order to create a large and fruitful community of researchers in this field, the aforementioned meeting was held with the participation of more than 70 researchers, students, post-doctoral fellows and lab managers.

The establishment of the biophysics community is part of the Technion Human Health Initiative (THHI) and President Prof. Uri Sivan push to promote interdisciplinary research related to health and medicine. One of the goals of the initiative is to bridge faculties, researchers and fields of research.

"For the past seven years, we have been working on the idea of consolidating a biophysics community at the Technion," says Prof. Ariel Kaplan from the Faculty of Biology. "The establishment of the Human Health Initiative about two years ago was an opportunity to put the idea on a practical track. We are also receiving important additional support from the Israel Science Foundation (ISF), and the meeting made it clear to us how strong the Technion is in the field of biophysics."

According to Prof. Yuval Garini from the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, "Today, there is already very advanced research in biophysics at the Technion, but it is very scattered, and the presence of researchers in the field is not prominent enough. As a result, students working in biophysics do not feel that they are part of a community, and this is what we came to change."

As part of the emerging community, diverse academic activities will take place - seminars, meetings between research groups and more - and a study program for advanced degrees will be formed to attract excellent students and faculty members from Israel and abroad.

"This was the first meeting of the biophysics community," says Prof. Amit Meller from the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, "but there will be more meetings and activities, and thus we will ignite the hearts of students with a love for research in the field. We will put our hearts and budgets into it. The Technion has an enormous advantage here - the in-depth and broad technological base that can support research in biophysics."