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December
11, 2006
VOL.
44, NO. 22Oakland,
CA
Israeli Catholic
scientist wins grant
for devices to find cancer
JERUSALEM
(CNS) -- Four months after completing his postdoctoral research in chemistry
and chemical engineering at the California Institute of Technology, Hossam
Haick had just gotten used to the idea of heading his own little lab when
he became the recipient of the largest European Union grant given to an
Israeli scientist.
Haick, a 31-year-old Catholic resident of Haifa who grew up in Nazareth,
was given the grant of $2.26 million to develop nanometric devices to
sniff out cancer like an “electric nose.” The devices will
be about 100,000 times smaller than the diameter of a hair, he said.
Haick is a researcher and senior lecturer in the chemical engineering
department and the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute, both at the
Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa.
With the EU grant, Haick hopes to create nanometric devices sensitive
enough to sniff out people with cancer as well as detect the stages and
location of about 90 percent of cancerous diseases by smelling people’s
breath.
Haick said his “vision is to develop a portable ... inexpensive
... device that can be used by every interested physician and clinic.”
He hopes his team will be able to create a working model to distinguish
between healthy and unhealthy patients within five years; the ability
to distinguish location and stages of the cancer will take longer to develop.
Hossam Haick stands in a lab at the Israel Institute
of Technology in Haifa, Israel, where he hopes to develop nanometric devices
that would smell cancer in people’s breath.
CNS PHOTO/DEBBIE HILL
He is currently doubling his lab staff to include 10 chemists as well
as chemical, electrical and material engineers from Israel, Europe and
Asia who will work in the three new labs he is establishing and directing.
The labs should be in working order next month, he said.
He had offers for positions in the United States and other academic institutions
in Israel, but he decided to return to Haifa because he wanted to contribute
to a mixed Arab-Jewish society, he said.
Haick also said he hopes that through his scientific work and relationships
he and his mostly Jewish colleagues can be role models on how relations
between the two communities can be built through mutual respect,
understanding, cooperation and, above all, science.
“I believe that science has a kind of unifying power that can bring
people from different religions and nationalities together in one place,
working with each other and understanding each other,” he said.
His current team includes Muslim and Christian Israeli Arabs, Russian
immigrants and Israeli Jews.
When he received his appointment at Technion, Haick also became one of
two full-time Arab faculty members at the institution and one of a handful
of Arab academics out of 3,000 senior positions in Israeli academia in
general. Most other Arab academics hold only part-time positions.
Although many students in the Arab sector have good scientific aptitude,
most have given up because they believe they will not be accepted in the
Israeli scientific community, said Haick.
