The S. Neaman Institute is leading an initiative to establish a ‘Northern Biotechnologies Cluster in Israel’ incorporating all companies, incubators, start-ups and academy researchers in the north of Israel. The rationale for this initiative is that biotechnology has become the fastest growing industrial sector in Israel and worldwide, and is reshaping science, especially life science, medicine, food and agriculture. The decision to lead this initiative was taken after a survey conducted by the S. Neaman Institute indicated that biotechnology industries are usually develop the best as ‘clusters’ in the vicinity of academic institutes and successful biotechnology researchers.
In order to promote this initiative, the S. Neaman Institute has organized meetings of leading scientists in the area, including scientists from the academy as well as leading personnel from companies located in the North. The main goal of those meetings was to bring together all forces involved, enabling them to develop close professional relations, and to determine the best organizational structure for the Northern Cluster.
As a result of those meetings a “Biotechnology Communication and Information Network” was established, and the www.bionorth.org.il went on air on April 2004.
That website has been developed and up-dated daily since then bringing together efforts of five different organizations which have contributed to the site:
1) The Haifa Economic Corporation Ltd;
2) The Technion, Israel Institute of Technology;
3) The Rappaport Institute for Research in the Medical Sciences;
4) Rambam Health Care Campus;
5) S. Neaman Institute for Advanced Studies in Science and Technology;
The www.bionorth.org.il is designed to serve as an “Interactive Live Network” for all forces involved in biotechnology fields in this region, and to promote communication and synergy among its participants, encourage development in biotechnology sciences, and make a positive impact on the economy of Northern Israel.
In addition to the BioNorth web-site a series of seminars on focused topics of interest started at the end of 2006 and have been conducted since then.
Those meetings involve investigators and leading researchers from academy and industry.
The first symposium was held at Neaman Institute on December 28th, 2006 on the subject of: ‘Novel technologies for improving food quality & safety’.
24 different meetings (all together) have been held since then during the last five years. More than 1000 people attended those meetings enabling investigators and leading researchers from academy and industry to meet together and to discuss mutual subjects of interest.
The 5 seminars held during the year of 2011 were:
31.03.2011 – ‘Neuro-Technologies and Engineering’.
20.06.2011 – ‘Medical Ultrasound Innovations in Israel’.
10.11.2011 – ‘Food Vision for 2020’.
01.12.2011 – ‘Electricity extraction by Bio-Technologies processes’.
22.12.2011 – ‘Synthetic Bio-Technologies’.
The purpose of those meetings is to present different researches, developments, as well
as experiences learned in the academy and industry, by bringing together scientists
from academy with leading researchers from industry, to discuss mutual subjects of
interest in-order to promote communication and synergism among them.
During January 2012th the BioNorth Steering Committee, chaired by Prof. Yuval
Shoham from the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering decided not to
prolong the project and perhaps a different format will be applied to this activity.
