By Eden
Hossam Haick is a professor at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology and a specialist in the field of nanotechnology and non-invasive disease diagnosis.
To start the talk with ISRAEL21c in Spanish, the scientist told a story about his eldest son, Fadi, who is now 13 years old.
As a child, Fadi was afraid of water but one day, Haick (47) and his wife were in the Technion swimming pool and an older man who was swimming – to this day he does not know his name – extended his arms to the boy. and he went into the water with him. And that’s how Fadi learned to swim.
Since then, Fadi became a competitive swimmer who won numerous awards. Haick said he will always be grateful to the stranger who got his son into the water.
That’s the idea of experimenting and trying new things that is symbolic of Haick’s pioneering work.
“When I do research, I jump into the water and then learn to swim,” he acknowledged.
A black belt in karate, Haick has the aura of someone who is calm and soft-spoken but has a steely temper.
With his team of 32 people – a group of scientists from around the world, including countries such as China, India and Russia – he has already produced more than 42 patents and patent applications, many of which are already licensed to international companies.
Haick won grants, awards, and recognition, including being named to a 2008 select list of the “World’s 35 Leading Young Scientists” compiled by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
This entrepreneur likes to imagine the impossible: two of his most famous inventions are the SniffPhone, a device whose nanotech sensors analyze breath for certain types of cancer, and the NaNose, which can detect biomarkers for a variety of medical conditions.
Molecular sutureless zipper
Before explaining more about those inventions, Haick wanted to share information about one of his latest creations.
“When I was a kid I saw Terminator,” he said. That happened while he was growing up in Nazareth with his four brothers.
His family was poor but his parents always brought home books about inventors and leaders for inspiration.
“Six or seven years ago I saw the movie again. Suddenly one night at 3am I woke up thinking about the robot and I said to myself: ‘Why don’t we do self-healing for electronic devices?'” he described.
The next day, he called Dr. Ning Tangun, a postdoctoral fellow originally from Vietnam now studying at the University of Texas at Austin, and said, ‘I have something crazy for you,” he told her. And Nang replied “Great”.
“There is no such thing as error. If someone has a different perspective and a different vision, that can be an opportunity. That’s why I never say to someone: ‘You’re wrong. I tell him: ‘I have a different opinion'” – Hossam Haick, professor at the Technion
Haick explained that electronic devices cannot be repaired and should not touch skin or blood. That’s how Tang created a polymer that could do all of that.
Composed of sulfur and nitrogen – and arranged like a molecular zipper – the device can dress a wound without the need for sutures, reducing the chance of infection.
It’s also smart and connected to a doctor’s computer.
“I am very excited about replacing the sutures. It’s something incredible,” he said.
Haick showed a movie of an electronic device floating in salt water.
A scientist cut the device in half and then pressed the two pieces together. Unlike Humpty Dumpty, the pieces came back together. And not only that, but the scientist was able to stretch the device like candy.
Health Tracker Tattoo
Another one of Haick’s amazing inventions is a wearable health tracking device that can be applied as a temporary tattoo.
People put the device on their skin and add water to it. Then remove the adhesive backing and the device remains stuck.
It is capable of bending and stretching while converting movement and body heat into electrical energy.
“The device contains hair-thin electrodes and microneedles. They do not feel. These are the sensors that monitor people’s biomarkers such as glucose, salt, latent tuberculosis, and even serve to check for dehydration,” Haick explained.
This non-invasive device could transmit this data to the user and the doctor.
“Between 20 and 40 percent of all medical diagnoses are wrong. And 15 percent of all surgeries are done for the wrong reasons. And this is due to late diagnosis. We seek to detect diseases while we are still healthy. That will make the survival rate go up,” he stated.
The entrepreneur pointed out that currently doctors can see between 40 and 70 patients every day, but that a system of the type that he developed was already active, each health professional could attend to 70,000 people thanks to the fact that he could have access to the data.
“If I had a crystal ball, would this device be common in the future?” asked ISRAEL21c en Español.
“Yes. Most people will use one,” he answered without hesitation.
A portable laboratory
“What is your focus for the next few years?” ISRAEL21c en Español asked.
“Do you know what a spectrometer is?” Haick asked. And he showed a photo of the machine.
“It measures more than one meter by one meter, weighs about 200 kilos and costs half a million dollars. It is a very complex laboratory to which blood or urine samples are taken and separated into elements. You can’t carry it from one place to another all the time,” he said.
He then drew wavy and square lines on a piece of paper and held it up in the air.
“This invention is like origami. We developed something that will do everything the spectrometer does but it’s the size of a credit card. It has 150 layers and will cost $20 to produce. The secret is what we put in the ink and how we do the folding. We wrote it down on a piece of paper,” he described.
Haick said that he has to think of a name for this device: “Today we call it a portable laboratory. In the future, this device may be placed in a building to detect a specific compound. For example, xylene. Above a certain threshold, it can cause cancer. Xylene is very difficult to collect and test but this device will be able to do that. In agriculture it could detect infections in trees to monitor fungi or toxicity.”
For Haick, the portable lab has enormous potential. He is sure that he will find partners to develop it.
As he was about to finish explaining this project, he went off on a tangent about another of his team’s projects.
“There are 600 billion cells in the human body and we study how they communicate with each other. From one part of the body to another, cells have a chemical language that they use. If we can eavesdrop on that language, we can intervene in this communication and intervene with treatment,” he stated.
Gut feelings
Outside of his research in nanotechnology, Haick is also dean of undergraduates at the Technion.
He recently received applicants whose academic grades were not high but had other qualities.
“I rely on a hunch. In one case out of 100 I’m wrong, so I’m right 90 percent of the time. I love taking risks,” he explained.
Along these lines, Haick recounted that a student asked him how he was successful in life and that he replied: “I don’t think too much. When I find the opportunity, I don’t think much about cheating.” And he added that he does not believe in mistakes.
“There is no such thing as error. If you have a different perspective and a different vision, that can be an opportunity. That’s why I never say to someone: ‘You’re wrong. I say, ‘I have a different opinion.'”
A model to follow
Haick and his wife Rana, a chemist and food engineer, live in Haifa with Fadi and their eight-year-old son named Eass.
Although Haick no longer practices karate, he walks six kilometers every morning before work.
As an Israeli Arab Christian, he does not want to be an example to a certain population. “I try to be a role model par excellence as a human being, not as an Arab. I have a humanistic concept. I seek excellence. It is the umbrella that defines us all,” he indicated.
Haick also discussed how his childhood and his family’s financial struggles influenced him: “When I was a student, I always thought, ‘How will I survive?’ I don’t worry about it now but I can’t forget where I come from. In terms of humanity, I think of those who do not have the means and how I can contribute to people’s health.”
He later stated: “We have to dream realistically. A realistic work plan is needed in terms of time and cost. There are competitors, and if we don’t take the train we will miss something”.
As an educator, Haick seeks to reach as many people as possible.
Thus, he developed the Technion’s first massive open online course in English and Arabic.
Since 2014, more than 54,000 people from all over the world participated in it.
In that sense, Haick said that he tries to encourage students to “understand the gaps that currently exist. The more he knows about a subject, the better it will be for that person. Filling the gap is called invention. That is the idea and the dream”.
Finally, he defined that the scientist should not be isolated in the laboratory. “It’s much more important to influence the public and the next generation,” he said.
Source: Israel21c