KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Professor Rafael (Rafi) Beyar, born in Tel Aviv in 1952, graduated from the School of Medicine of Tel Aviv University in 1977 (MD), the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering at the Technion in 1983 (DSc) and the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University in 2008 (MPH). In 1983, he founded the Heart System Research Center at the Technion where he served as Coordinator and Director. He completed his residency in medicine at Rambam (1983-1985) and a fellowship in cardiology at Johns Hopkins University (1985-1987). He was appointed Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Medicine at the Technion in 1996 and served as Director of the Division of Invasive Cardiology at Rambam. He served as Visiting Professor at Johns Hopkins University for several years. In 1998, he was elected as Dean of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion and served for the full term. Under his leadership, Professor Avram Hershko and Professor Aaron Ciechanover, members of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in October 2004.

Professor Beyar has received prestigious prizes over the course of his career, among them the Taub Prize for excellence in Research in 1999 and the Michelle Mirowski Award for Accomplishments in Cardiovascular Medicine, Israeli Heart Association in 2002. In 2005 he was nominated to the prestigious Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars for his worldwide contribution to cardiovascular science and for establishing the Technion-Johns Hopkins Collaboration Program on Biomedical Sciences and Engineering.

Beyar’s research and clinical interests range from mathematical simulation to imaging and analysis of the cardiovascular system, as well as the development of stents and new technology in cardiology. He has authored over 150 scientific publications and 11 books, is founding editor of Acute Cardiac Care Journal, endorsed by the European Society of Cardiology and is organizer and founder of leading professional cardiovascular meetings. Since February 2006, Beyar has been serving as General Director of the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa, Israel, which is the major academic hospital serving Northern Israel. In the summer of 2006, he led the hospital through the second Lebanon war when Rambam was treating patients under fire. Beyar is now spearheading a major development plan in both clinical and research facilities at Rambam, focusing on the combination of medicine science and technology that will most benefit patients’ health care.

Daniel Charny MA RCA FRCA is an independent curator, designer and lecturer with an industrial design background. Co-founder of creative projects consultancy From Now On and Senior Tutor at the Royal College of Art where he has been teaching since 1998. Charny curates major exhibitions for world leading institutes such as the Design Museum London and Victoria and Albert Museum. Between 2002 - 2010 he was the founding curator of The Aram Gallery for experimental and new design. In 2003 Charny wrote the master-plan and architectural brief for the Design Museum Holon. Recently in 2011 his creative projects consultancy was appointed Content and Interpretation Consultants to the Design Museum London. His latest project is the exhibition and publication Power of Making for the V&A Museum and Crafts Council of England.

Charny graduated and later taught at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design Industrial Design Department before moving to the Royal College of Art to develop an expertise in design thinking with a focus on brief writing and thinking by making. Recognised by design media as a progressive curator and leading design tutor, in the past 15 years he has taught and lectured widely in academic and commercial organisations around the world including in Guangzhou China, Kyoto Japan, Singapore, Lund and Stockholm in Sweden, Madrid Spain and Tel-aviv, Israel. Charny chairs and contributes to public design debates and has been on design juries such as the Spanish National design prize and currently that of the Miami Design designer of the year award.

Paolo Dario is Professor of Biomedical Robotics and Director of the BioRobotics Institute of the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy. He has been Visiting Professor at Brown University, Providence, RI, USA; at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland; at the École Normale Superieure de Cachan, France; at the College de France, Paris, France; at the Polytechnic University of Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain; at Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China; and at Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan. His main research interests are in the fields of medical robotics, bio-robotics, mechatronics and micro/nano engineering, and specifically in sensors and actuators for the above applications, and in robotics for rehabilitation. In recent years he has been increasingly active in the field of robotics surgery. He is the coordinator of many national and European projects, the editor of two books on the subject of robotics, and the author of more than 250 scientific papers (180 on ISI journals). He has been and is Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editor and member of the Editorial Board of many international journals. He has been program chair and plenary invited speaker in many international conferences (including IEEE ICRA, IROS and EMBC).

Dr. Peter Fitzgerald is the Director of the Center for Cardiovascular Technology and Director of the Cardiovascular Core Analysis Laboratory (CCAL) at Stanford University Medical School. He is an Interventional Cardiologist and has a PhD in Engineering. He is Professor in both the Departments of Medicine and Engineering at Stanford. Presently, Dr. Fitzgerald’s laboratory includes 14 postdoctoral fellows and graduate engineering students focusing on state-of-the-art technologies in Cardiovascular Medicine. He has led or participated in over 95 clinical trials, published over 300 manuscripts/chapters, and lectures worldwide. He has trained over 125 post-docs in Engineering and Medicine in the past decade.

Peter has been principle/founder of fourteen medical device companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has transitioned nine of these start-ups to large medical device companies. He serves on several boards of directors, advised dozens of medical device startups as well as multinational healthcare companies in the design and development of new diagnostic and therapeutic devices in the cardiovascular arena. In 2001, Peter was on the founding team at LVP Capital, a venture firm, focused on medical device and biotechnology start-ups in San Francisco. In 2008, he partnered, with TriVentures, which is an incubator for early state medical technology in Israel and heads the Stanford-China Med Tech innovation program.

Itzhak Fried, M.D., Ph.D., F.A.C.S., obtained his MD degree from Stanford University, PhD from UCLA and neurosurgical training at Yale.

He is professor of neurosurgery at Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel-Aviv University and at Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He directs the Functional Neurosurgery Unit at Tel-Aviv Medical Center, and is head of the Cognitive Neurophysiology laboratory and epilepsy surgery program at UCLA. He is also the founding director of the Cognitive Neurophysiology Consortium funded by the Dana Foundation.

Dr. Fried is a leader in the surgical treatment of patients with severe epilepsy. He is also a pioneer in the recordings of single neuron activity in neurosurgical patients during cognitive tasks providing a unique window into the functions of the human brain in health and in disease. His research has been published in numerous journals including Nature, Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science and others. He has been elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for his contributions to cognitive neuroscience by using single cell recordings in neurosurgery.

Col Gil Hirschhorn is the surgeon general of the Israeli Air Force.

Col Hirschhorn was born in Israel on July 17th, 1965.

Following his high school graduation, he studied at the Faculty of Medicine in the Technion in Haifa, Israel (1983-1989).

During the years 1990-1991, he completed his Internship at Carmel Hospital, Haifa, Israel.

In 1991 he was enlisted to the IDF and was appointed as a paratrooper battalion medical officer.

In 1992 he became the chief medical officer of a naval special operations unit.

In 1995, Dr. Hirschhorn started his residency in General Surgery at Rambam Medical Center, Haifa, Israel.

After completion of the first part of his residency, Col Hirschhorn served as the commander of the airborne medical evacuation section of the IAF combat search and rescue unit (CSAR), 669 (1998-2000).

During 2000-2004 he completed his general surgery residency.

At the same time he served as an instructor of clinical trauma at the Israel Medical Simulation Center (MSR) at Tel Hashomer.

In 2004 Col Hirschhorn graduated the IDF command and staff, High Institute for Staff and Command and became the Galilee Division (northern Israel) medical officer.

He served at the division until the end of the 2nd Lebanon War (July-August 2006) and in November 2006 he became the chief of the trauma branch in the IDF Surgeon General's Headquarters.

At that position he dealt with clinical issues, simulator education programs, trauma registry, and doctrine development.

He took an active part as the medical Consultant in the program of development of the MedEvac UAV.

Dr. Hirschhorn was a member of The Israel National Trauma Committee as well as several other national sub-committees of the Ministry of health and a Board member in the Israel Trauma Society.

In January 2010 he was appointed to be the Surgeon General of the Israeli Air Force.

At this position, he commands the medical service of the air force which includes the operational branch, organization, psychiatry and dental branches and the Air force Aeromedical institute (Yarp"a), and he is the reference to specific aeromedical operational issues and airborne medical evacuation.

Col Hirschhorn is the medical consultant to the IDF surgeon General in aeromedical related issues.

In 2002 Col Hirschhorn assumed command of the airborne medical evacuation team to Mombasa, Kenya after the terror attack.

Gil has academic master degree in health administration from Ben Gurion University.

Sport activities: Mountain biking and trail running.

He is married to Sarit, a nurse, and has three children.

Leo Joskowicz is a Professor at the School of Engineering and Computer Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, where he conducts research in computer-assisted surgery, computer-aided mechanical design, computational geometry, and robotics since 1995. He obtained his PhD in Computer Science at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University, in 1988. From 1988 to 1995, he was at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York. In 1996, he founded the Computer-Aided Surgery and Medical Image Processing Laboratory, which he heads.

Prof. Joskowicz is the recipient of the 2010 Maurice E. Muller Award for Excellence in Computer Assisted Surgery by the International Society of Computer Aided Orthopaedic Surgery and of the 2007 Kaye Innovation Award, The Hebrew University.  He is a member of the editorial boards of Computer-Aided Surgery, Medical Image Analysis, Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery, Advanced Engineering Informatics, ASME Journal of Computing and Information Science in Engineering, and Annals of Mathematics Artificial Intelligence. He has published over 170 technical works including conference and journal papers, book chapters, and editorials and has served on numerous related program committees.  He frequently consults for companies in Israel, Europe, and the USA.

Meir Liebergall, MD, is Professor and Chairman of the Orthopedic Surgery Complex at The Hadassah University Medical Center, which is a Level 1 Trauma Center, in Jerusalem, Israel. This hospital provided medical care to most of the casualties from the recent years' violence in that region. Prior to his current position he served as Head of Hospitalization Division of that department. Dr. Liebergall received his MD at The Hebrew University Medical School, Jerusalem, Israel. He completed his residency at the Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Hebrew University ÎÎ Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel and completed a clinical and research orthopaedic fellowship at The Skeletal Research Center, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. Prof. Liebergall specializes in adult reconstructive surgery and trauma, and his research interests include computerized assisted orthopaedic surgery (CAOS) and tissue engineering.

During the last few years Dr. Liebergall has become an international leader in the area of computer assisted orthopaedic surgery (CAOS), mainly in two aspects that constitute his major personal clinical interest: trauma and joint replacement. In joint replacement he has been the first in the world to perform hip replacement through two small incisions with the aid of a computerized navigation system. In the orthopedic trauma field he has turned the computer into a routine tool used in the many daily operations performed by the department. He wrote original chapters on CAOS in Trauma Surgery for the sixth and seventh editions of the most important textbook in orthopedic trauma by Rockwood and Green. Dr. Liebergall has been also invited to report his vast experience in that field in numerous international professional conferences and has conducted a Course on Computer Assisted Surgery at the Hospital for Special Surgery, New-York. In the area of tissue engineering he has created an inter-departmental team (basic science and applicative science) in order to study and implement the use of mesenchymal stem cells in orthopedics, studies which are supported by large and important research grants.

In the past decade methods for the isolation of mesenchymal stem cells (CD45+ cells) which are one of the essential components in the formation of the callus and the healing of a fracture have been developed. In a sterile, minimally invasive way, tens of millions of mesenchymal stem cells can be isolated and purified. These cells can be aspirated from bone marrow, and injected, after purification, into the fracture site. This augmentation decreases the chances of developing delayed or non -union of the fracture. We are currently conducting an exciting clinical trial, in which we are testing the ability of this method to assist the healing of fractures of the distal third of the tibia, an area known to have a high non-union rate (close to 15%). In the study, we are harvesting stem cells from the bone marrow and injecting them into the fracture site four weeks after the fracture. We have seen so far that this biological stimulus shortens the healing process, reducing both the non weight-bearing period and the patients' suffering.

Dr. Liebergall is a member of the National Council for Surgery, Anesthetics and Intensive Care, Ministry of Health, Israel; He is also a member of the American Orthopedic Trauma Association (Correspondence); American Orthopedic Research Society; American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons (International Affiliated Member) and International society of Computer Assisted Orthopedic Surgery.

Andreas Melzer was born in 1960 and after studying in Mainz and Tuebingen he qualified in Dentistry in 1989 and as an MD in 1993. He has 20 years experience in the development of medical technology for laparo-endoscopic surgery, interventional radiology, interventional & intraoperative MRI and image guided robotics, surgical instrumentation, surgical robotics and Nitinol devices with more than 60 patents and over 200 publications, more than 500 oral and poster presentations. He has served as co editor of three medical journals, Co-founder and partner of six start-up companies in the medical technology business and consultant for major vendors in medicine. He serves as organizer or chairman of various medical conferences and board member of six medical and technical societies. He currently is Professor of Medical Technology and Director of the Institute for Medical Science and Technology IMSaT, a joint venture of the Universities Dundee and St Andrews, Scotland.

Jeff Rothenberg is the Managing Partner of Heslin Rothenberg Farley & Mesiti PC, the largest intellectual property law firm in upstate New York. His forte, strategic planning in the creation, commercialization and management of intellectual property portfolios, is founded on his prior experience as manager of a corporate patent and licensing department. In 1996, a patent he procured for the Eastman Kodak Company received the U.S. National Inventor of The Year award. He also has extensive experience conducting IP due diligence evaluations for venture capital and other investment firms. Mr. Rothenberg holds a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a J.D. from George Washington University. His practice focuses on intellectual property protection of innovations in the medical and clean tech fields. He chairs his firm's Foreign Practice group and spends several months each year in Israel assisting clients.

Richard Satava, MD, FACS, is Professor of Surgery at the University of Washington Medical Center, and Senior Science Advisor at the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command in Ft. Detrick, MD.

Prior positions include Professor of Surgery at Yale University and a military appointment as Professor of Surgery (USUHS) in the Army Medical Corps assigned to General Surgery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Program Manager of Advanced Biomedical Technology at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA),

His undergraduate training was at Johns Hopkins University, medical school at Hahnemann University of Philadelphia, internship at the Cleveland Clinic, surgical residency at the Mayo Clinic, and a fellowship with a Master of Surgical Research at Mayo Clinic.

He has served on the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Committee on Health, Food and Safety. He is currently a member of the Emerging Technologies and Resident Education, and Informatics committees of the American College of Surgeons (ACS), is past president of the Society of American Gastrointestinal Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES), past president of the Society of Laparoendoscopic Surgeons (SLS), and is on the Board of Governors of the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) as well as on a number of surgical societies. He is on the editorial board of numerous surgical and scientific journals, and active in numerous surgical and engineering societies.

He has been continuously active in surgical education and surgical research, with more than 200 publications and book chapters in diverse areas of advanced surgical technology, including Surgery in the Space Environment, Video and 3-D imaging, Telepresence Surgery, Virtual Reality Surgical Simulation, and Objective Assessment of Surgical Competence and Training.

During his 23 years of military surgery he has been an active flight surgeon, an Army astronaut candidate, MASH surgeon for the Grenada Invasion, and a hospital commander during Desert Storm, all the while continuing clinical surgical practice. While striving to practice the complete discipline of surgery, he is aggressively pursuing the leading edge of advanced technologies to formulate the architecture for the next generation of Medicine.