מאוטו לבריאות כשפורד וגנרל מוטורס מתאחדים.

From auto to health where Ford and GM get together
There are things that only can happen in America. A city of cars turn into a city of innovation and life science.
This is a vision we in Israel can relate to After all we have turned deserts into farms , Kibutz and towns and later even back into concrete desserts.
It is hard to understand how big the auto business of Detroit is in Israeli terms.
This city that nature gave the gift of green land probably has been the center of car making and thus the center of Road Making America for many decades.
And now the city want change and a change that not only bring it back the nature's beauty but also sustain and keep it a leading edge in America's economy.
It is only healthy that health biotech and environmental CleanTech and water take a key in this effort. And only right that the automakers take part. But this is not aid type of help but rather pure business building.
TechTown of Detroit is probably the most courageous and most far reaching local enterprise to drive a community's economy I have seen so far. And its doing it by promoting self enterprise. Coming from a community in Israel where every person and the next door neighbor consider them self the next big thing ("A STARtUP) its not obvious to us how in America where getting a job, a driver's license and a postal address mean the right to live, it is hard to move people to enterprise and funding (and finding) their own call in starting one's own business.
And the goals are enormous in numbers – hundreds of them in few years.
Such a drive needs an engine – and being backed by local academics is a plus but Ford and GM can and should be part of the mechanics and they are. techTown comes on their old machine-shops and with their back-wind.
We met TechTown as a group that is interested to promote life science in Haifa using a vehicle of promoting integration, or in Techtown's words soft landing.
We share the vision of what it takes for foreign company to immigrate to other geography culture and business. We both are experimenters in company immigration, rather then spreading we see tech company building a center be it a business center or R&D center, it is immigration rather then budding. I follow this bigger and most courageous experiment in amaze and in joy to see it grow.
You can too: http://www.techtownwsu.org/

Inflection points: when creativity stirs a revolution

Inflection points: where creativity stirs a revolution

I was a young Scientist, Graduate student, I just moved out of Europe, Paris of all places to Boston. From Life Science to Chemistry.
I thought I wanted to become a crystallographer and I believe I was one of a hundred who could spell it. I came from the laboratory of Ada Yonath at the Weizmann to Boston College for a fresh new Merkert Chemistry Center. I was in an inflection point on the brink of leaving biology and becoming a chemist. Boston was in an inflection point as well. DEC (Digital computers a giant in computers at the time) was loosing power in an ever growing pace to the PC/Mac world growing around, with jobs going to what was the Triangle in the Carolinas. Lots of Engineers were out of jobs, and many computer experts lost their basis.
I worked 10:00 to 02:00 every day but Saturday, I spent most of my Saturdays at the MFA and took only one evening off, where I joined one of the biggest cultural revolution of the 90s.- I thought I knew it, it just did not say so. I used to do Tuesday night at the bookseller café in Davis Square Cambridge where few former computer engineers, few story lovers and many of the then small storytelling community gathered around Brother Blue to start the underground that made Boston the Mecca of storytelling and changed the way oral literature moved around the world. It was just that everybody was there, and I was a fly on the wall. And the big blue long gifted individual was there to share a call. Storytellers came from all over the world to this venue for several years, and from there a gospel of community storytelling and community of storytellers has emerged. Its hard to explain how much story telling had changed since. Blue was the greatest listener and a teacher of listening. His gift of finding a spark where there is to be a fire is a story by itself. But - it was about what happened around Brother Blue: His followers were changing the attitude from storytelling for storytellers only – to storytelling for everyone gifted. Finding the innovative voice and expanding the definition of storyteller. The performer, the teller, the artist.
It was all there before, but Boston offered new voices, the foreigner, the poet storyteller, the musician and the non – performer one great story owner.
It was putting the great story first that made it a fascinating experience and such that attracted more and more. People came to listen to the one great story, that was often there. It was a listening venue, nurturing innovation in a way most High-tech managers would foster. It was Blue's way and the people around him took it there – but it was also an inflection point.
PC world was chasing super-computers ever so fast out of town, Boston was changing to becoming a campus city and all around the river Biotech world was being created.
Storytelling was a major at a few, but only a few Colleges (Leslie College among or only) and oral history and literature was included in few activities – partly in a few Jewish and Irish cultural places and in pubs.
Boston was to get storytelling out of the African American, Jewish or Irish Heritage or academics to the open as a community building tool for society, for schools.
"Blue nights" at the bookseller was a unique get together of all the powers of story telling, the Jewish story telling community (and coalition), the Irish and Celtic, even the pagan and the African American and the cellar as a junction created mixed potluck events, open-mikes, expanded LANES, and extended Sharing the Fire conference of storytelling on the coldest weekend of the Year every-year. In the 90s Americans felt they were losing their sense of community and many found through Tuesday night in the café that storytelling could give a sense of community. The café meeting was the "twilight-bark" for events and the community as many people came regularly from far up or down state to Tuesday night at the café, and a lousy beer and a Pizza afterward. But it all happened in Boston the center of shift, the city that created Polaroid and revolutionized photography. And Biogen Inc. was happening and a biotech buzz was in the happening. Things have shifted, it was the decade of the NMR, MRi and new things happened slowly at a pace of huge magnets. Cambridge was not to become biotech square until the late Nineties, but it was on the air. Between demonstrations (and shootings) in abortion clinics, the Boston marathon, and the Charles River Paw-wow Boston has turned to biotech capital of the world. Yet, also the Mecca of storytelling.
I learned to listen there, to the story of Boston to finding ones call. I was not looking for a story only I was looking for my own Mt Everest to climb.
I decided I will go for the neglected polymers of life. (Well - only neglected in the life-sciences at the time – I'd go back to sugars. I was interested in bio-computing and sugars and sugar binding proteins, I believed, could be the "magnetic tape of the future". (Yes, I belong to the generation that have buried the magnetic tape media technology during their studies).
It was an inflection point not only in Boston, even Crystallography was redefined, in Israel and around the globe the Ribosome Crystal Structure Summit was to be conquered – in a quest that deserves another story.
I later joined the laboratory of Prof. Vlodavsky to study complex sugars when I realized there is a lack of technology for such studies. There was my Mt. Everest. Since 1995 I was looking for a solution for carbohydrate structure determination. As early as in 1997 I started formulating a solution on the basis of 2d NMR principles and biochips, yet without a full solution. Since 1997 I made this quest public in "Automatic-sequencing carbohydrate polymers by the year 2005" forum. In 1998 I became head of Glycobiology (a title I made up and probably I was the first to ever have this title in industry) in Savion Diagnostics and started lectin database project and in 2000 Glycodata Ltd came to be (later Procognia)– in 2005 the first automatic sequencing tool for the lay-scientist was in the market at "Qiagen" on the basis of lectin array using my technology and Procognia's development, I was the founder of and a few products are in the market today. I hope I helped turning Mt Everest into a hill.
At the end of 2009, November 7th Brother Blue passed away at 88 – and Storytelling survived, many stories survived as well, .but maybe it stopped evolving, for a while.
I have found it out while writing this blog and this blog have turned into this.
A month later on December 10th Ada Yonath received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, her story is still told – she says it will take years for the dust to rest – and that is only the dust of the prize. Maybe then the story will spark.

On the innovation process and the spin-off process

On the innovation process and the spin-off process

The process by which innovative technology is born is usually in the mind of an innovative mind and then to new patents and then to new technology.
But the process by which a new application is created is more complex and more market oriented.
It often starts with a need. Then it is followed by understanding what solutions are out there, followed by a gap analysis.
It is often created to match an existing technology. So, analysis of the technology shortcomes or advantages is followed.
It is a most creative process - but it has much engineering to it.
The ability to create new application is a miracle at a time. It requires good market knowledge, technical skills, user needs understanding, intimate understandng of the field and the way technology is used in the field.
The rewards of application development is a shorter time to market, faster solution to problems, and faster time to market.
The ability to develop appications is the heart of any company (Tech-company) to grow, yet the process which is the most critical in a company's life is given much less attention than the initial invention and technology development.
The process is highly innovative and most creative as it needs curving ones way in a very limited land. thru all the obstacles of allready developend technology.
it requires complex teams, that know the technology, understand the needs and understand the user.
Often it needs different people in the R&D world. More the D people solution oriented and engineering type people. the type of people that ask the questions rather then the people with the answers.
When building an application group remmember then you need the three elements - market, technology and user.
You will need the patent - IP people later in the process but do not forget them.
appcation patents are the heart of a growing technology company.

It is critical to allow the organisation go through all the stages of project creation in any application - it tends to reduce development times.
For example - creating nanomaterial for window painting is different enough from creating nano material for wall painting to deserve a process, not to talk of using a machine for asthetic purposes vs. medical use or moving technology from sewage water treatment to treatment of seawater.
While you will spend more time initializing the project you have all the chances to
save time in the process by helping you in the process of problem solving.
remmember - Regulatory hurdles, market habits, money trails are more then likely to be different.
for example moving a material technology from medical to food may reduce regulatory health regulation but wil add issues of Kosher/hallal labeling that where not main issues before.

הכל על ה- RECALL – אירוע סטטיסטי או כשל מבני בבטיחות המזון?

הכל על ה- RECALL – אירוע סטטיסטי או כשל מבני בבטיחות המזון?

ד"ר עופר מרקמן*
הפרוצדורה שנקראת הורדה מהמדפים ((RECALL אמורה להיות תוצר נדיר בתעשיית המזון ותוצאה של כשל חריף באיכות ובבקרה במערכי היצור. מדובר בתהליך יקר ומורכב בו הזמן והפרסום משמשים ביחד לאזהרת הציבור מסכנה לבריאותו.

העובדה שבשבועות האחרון חלו שני אירועים משמעותיים בארץ – האחד בחברת מעדנות והשני בחברת אסם - היא חריגה, אולם היא תואמת מגמות עולמיות של עליה במספר התופעות בעולם – כולל מקרים משמעותיים של פגיעה בבריאות הציבור.
המגמה הזו אינה תוצאה של ירידה באיכות היצרנים אלא נובעת יותר מכשל מערכתי הנובע מאפיין מרכזי בתעשיית המזון – הרצון לשפר את איכותו המוצר. תוספת שלי – ככל שמבקשים לשפר את ריחו, טעמו ומרקמו של מוצר המזון, כך עולה גם המורכבות הייצורית הנדרשת להפקת המוצר. לצערנו, פעולות אילו אינן מגובות בשינוי תפיסתי מבחינת האיכות והבקרה שאינן מגובות במקביל לתהליכי היצור והשינוע המורכבים.

איכות רכיבי מזון, בטיחות מזון ואלרגיות מזון הינן תופעות בעלות משמעויות קטסטרופליות במונחי בריאות הציבור. בדךר כלל, משמעותו הכלכלית של כשל כזה היא כשעלותו הישירה והעקיפה הינה בעשרות מליוני דולרים. נזכיר שרק מעדנות דיווחה על עלויות ישירות של 10 מיליון שקלים ובל נשכח את ההשקעה שיתכן ויהיה צורך לבצע בשיקום המותג.

למרות שבכל המקרים האחרונים בהם הורדו מוצרים מהמדפים (ללא מקרה רמדיה המפורסם), לא נמסר מידע על נפגעים – ולמרות שיש קורלציה עם העלאת הרגישות של המפעלים ועליית המודעות לסיכון – הרי שעדיין יש עליה משמעותית במספר אירועי הליסטריה בארץ ובעולם בשנים האחרונות ואין נתונים על מיגור הבעיה בעקבות עליית המודעות.

היצרנים אולי מודעים יותר אבל ובכל זאת נרשמת עליה המאוד מדאיגה במספר ארועי אלרגיות המזון בעולם המערבי כפי שהיא נמדדת באשפוזים (המספרים הרשמיים בארה"ב כפי שמפרסם המרכז למניעה ומעקב אחר מחלות מראים על עלית של 18 אחוזים בילדים בעשור אחרון עם עליה ניכרת לרמה של כעשרת אלפים אישפוזים עד 2006 ועם למעלה ממאה מקרי מוות, ועם השפעה קורלטיבית על מקרי האסטמה ותופעות אחרות הקשורות לאלרגיה – והמספר הרשמי של הסובלים מאלרגית מזון בארה"ב מגיעה ל12 מיליון). אחת הסיבות לכך היא מורכבות הגדולה ברכיבי המזון המביאה לתוצאה של "זליגה אלרגית" לפיה כמעט בכל מוצר מזון יש רכיבים אלרגניים כמו חלב, לקטוז, אגוזים בוטנים ועוד. מערכות ניטור היצור במפעלים המייצרים רכיבי מזון ובמפעלי עיבוד המזון אינן מסוגלות להתמודד היום עם המספר הרב של גורמי הסיכון שעלולים לחדור למערכת.

עלויות הבקרה הגדולות גורמות למפעלים רבים להסיט את אחריות הבקרה לספקים. בסופו של דבר ההחלטה האם להשקיע 2 מליון דולר בציוד בקרה ובטיחות או לקחת סיכון של 3% לנזק של 30 מליון דולרים היא החלטה כלכלית – וחבל שכך. בעולם שלנו 2 מליון דולרים הינו מספר נתון בעוד ש- 30 מליון דולרים הוא מספר די ארטליאי המחושב לפי חישובי סיכון על בסיס עבר. ולכן עלות הסיכון תהיה תמיד מחושבת בחסר ולא תיקח בחשבון את עלות הסיכון לציבור.

יש לזכור כי בכל מקרה בו הוכח גם הכשל וגם הקשר למקרי מוות הנזק למפעל תמיד היה קטסטרופלי, ובשנים האחרונות מפעלים נסגרים שוב ושוב – אובדן הבטיחות והפרנסה אינו גזירה משמיים – ועדיין צריך להמשיך להאכיל את העולם בצורה בטוחה. מפעלי המזון חייבים היום לשנות את דרך המחשבה, כיוון שהסיכונים עולים ככל שהטכנולוגיה הייצורית עולה. שיטה שמתאימה למפעל בו יש עד כמה עשרות בודדות של ערוצי כניסת סיכונים, קורסת במפעל המזון המודרני מרובה הערוצים ואין למפעלים ברירה אלא להגביר את אמצעי הבקרה העצמיים, דבר שיחייב השקעה מסיבית או שינוי תפיסה.

*הכותב הינו מומחה לביוטכנולוגיה ולטכנולוגיות איכות ובטיחות מזון ומיזמי אנקי ביוטק NTL מבית ת'אליה ביוונצ'ור ומיזמי נוטריקוגניה בע"מ.

National security and non terror risks to the national security

National security and non terror risks to the national security.
Not all risks to the national security are related to terror – although terror would like to exploit the possibility to reach a vast number of casualties through the food chain it is rather complicated to bring such act to reality.While the use of bacterial risk factors and the food choice is the major hazard the authorities invest in preventing three major risk factors are rising to a seriously threatening factor. Economic food crimes: Adulteration and forgery of food ingredients, addition of simple harmfull elements to trick the tests, and replacing expensive reagents in cheap offensive ingredients are the major risk factors the industry faces.The melamine crises of 2008 in china was probably the most influencing economic crime in the food sector ever, with direct and indirect damages reaching billion of dollars the seven lives (three sentenced to death) and hospitalization reaching thousands (over 12000), 300,000 sick kids and tens of thousands of lost jobs, billions of dollars lost in recalls that spread through the whole globe. Like many other facts, It was lost in the general economic crisis of the end of 2008 but still probably the most influencing food economic crime world wide ever.Environmental hazards: the hazard of environmental toxicology is by far the most realistic dooms day scenario of food safety failures. The fact that there are so many agricultural lands next to if not right next or in the heart of toxic industry and the fact that some of the most toxic agents are used in agriculture, make this scenario more reasonable. The real numbers of food poisoning due to environmental poisoning is never actually measured and the real numbers of actual fish metal toxicology has never been reported yet these are the highest economic blows to any industry ever with economic impacts of recalls in the fishing industry reach damages of billions of dollars in few cases. For example the crisis on metals in tuna fish in the late 1990s early 2000s has been estimated in tens of billions. In Israel one day of recall on fish due to forbidden dye used in fish cultivation has cost around a billion NIS. In the early 2000s.Bacterial negligence – hygienic hazards – the most feared of all and the most commonly known hazard in food is the known pathogen attack on the population in food chains and fast food. Annual death toll world wide reaching 1,229 in 1999 and annual cost reaching 6.3 billions in 1999 with salmonella and listeria toping the list with ~500 death toll each.Listeria outbreak and general food outbreaks take indirect toll as well, in hospitalization and unnessesary ER visits that cause eventually .

Bringing technology to the public the Automatic Glycomolecule Sequencing

Bringing technology to the public the Automatic Glycomolecule Sequencing Issue:

I was involved with glycobiology only through the network and the Web by joining the mythological EGC conferences (Electronic Glycosciences Conference). It the later part of the first five years of the 1990s. I was at the time involved with structural biology, crystallography and NMR which were in the nature of my PhD dissertation.
I was interested in bio-computing and saw glycomolecules as a dramatic source of multiple-, yet specific-, connectivity and by thus a chance for a new bio-algebra. I decided to pursue my next Post Doc opportunity in this arena and join a leading laboratory in Israel in the "hands on" (wet) biology sector.
I then found out that I joined a central core field in the life sciences that was ill equipped compared to its counterparts, the DNA and RNA world where sequencing were as easy as a cook book solution (by no mean as easy as it is today). And protein sequencing where at the Protein Society meeting in Davos in 1995 a revolution was announced in bringing in the multiplexed MS solutions.
Carbohydrate analysis was still in the 1960s. A method that was only accessible to the few good guys, who could speak ivy-league English and the Oxbridge accent of it. And, the control of the technology gave them control of the field. And the field was lagging but coming to age due to life science progress.
The glycosequencing field needed decentralization to have a chance to compete the other LS fields and with a group of young web based individuals we started a process.
We had a regular scheduled meetings on BioMOO the life science virtual reality club (many years before second life) we gave bioinformatics courses for networking and we started up. The lectin database was one of them.
I was into the activity without any groundbreaking idea, and it was OK, we initiated the Automatic GlycoSequencing before 2005 forum as a lobby group, and we also started writing in the secondary magazines about the activities but also poring the ideas.
By 1998 I was a member of the community with almost no major contribution in glycosciences, but with a perfect understanding of the issues of glycosequencing and its role in the life-sciences and in glycobiology.
I was nevertheless working on Glycoseamino Glycoans and Heparan Solphate as a living. And was promoting one of the first multiplexing diagnostic initiatives.
In a cold dark Jerusalem night a solution dawned on me (my English is good enough to understand the how problematic it was). And in a meeting in a small coffee shop called "Café Katan" on a small napkin I put what is to be soon Glycodata and later Procognia and Nutricognia's technology. My partner at the time Ilan was with me at the conception. This is not about the coming of a company of age. This is about the innovative conception. About how an idea is coming to age. Not all innovations take forever to start, mine do.
In 2000 Glycodata became Procognia, by 2005 glycosequencing is available to all in services and in kits sold.

metal detection

Metal detection:

It was 1997 and I was with Sensei in Sendai on our way down to the house in Toyama, my first experience in rural Japanese. They called it the house or the cabin in Toyama and said it was Spartan or traditional or Classic, and I was building a cold. In the morning we were to go down to the fishing port to see the coming fish for fresh material for sensei students. His Students were mostly heads of Scientific groups, mostly PhDs already and many were Professors.
Sensei would collect good material and send it to them mostly giant squids, but often other organisms some are harder to find. I was building a cold and was to spend the next three days under the fog of a cold. But I was to experience a handful of Japan Sea's culinary experience and meet a handful of Fishermen and sea-man.
I also met the chair of the Fishery Union of Toyama. We ate fish and sashimi of all sort and flavor – I only refused to eat "Fugo", a thrill I was not up to – and we talked about the sea and about fish. Being cold and the amount of Japanese spoken and mixed in English made it even more interesting. Sensei had a prefect English, and a cigarette in hand at all times, a true chain smoker and a healthy one.
We have seen a giant squid of 2-3 meters coming from the deep sea, and all the goodies of the Toyama bay. And I already remember Sensei saying that we need to better understand marine biology and the sea if we want to keep on enjoying the things the sea offers.
I kept on following the fishing world ever since, through several devastating incidents of metal pollutions, through major recalls with environmental background and through the wake of the world to the situation.
I have seen numbers building and economic burden ever increasing.
In 2006 I was on the advisory committee of a small biotech in the field of biocapturing, when I was asked to advice on capturing target. By then it was clear to me metal detection is going to be the next biotech haven – and I said so, They decided to run after a medical target. Two years later a set of metal capturing molecules was already worth billions. It still is.
The market for detection of metals and the metal risk cost market are now several tens of billion dollars and the damages incurred since the conversation is measured in hundreds of billion dollars and the mountains of metal risks to the food drink and building industries are unmeasured in dollars.
Biocapturing of metals and biosensing metals and metal ions is simple, yet untapped opportunity still today. Their toxicity imply on organism selectivity and thus the opportunity. There must be a selective biomeasure for each of the current known metal pollutant.