news | The Robert H. Smith

Students show off latest food technology

Jerusalem Post covers Food Tech Nation Conference at the Faculty - The future of healthy eating drew crowds Thursday at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture in Rehovot. About 300 people came to an event celebrating the institution’s 75th anniversary and giving students the opportunity to showcase their work. It featured some of the latest developments in Israeli food technology ranging from 3D printed meals to protein powder made from fly larva.

The man who just can’t stop inventing

Nanotech pioneer Prof. Oded Shoseyov has already founded 11 companies based on his inventions. Now he’s on his next: a 4D printing platform to create customized meals.

Times of Israel story on Professor Oded Shoseyov:

Oded Shoseyov

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The Swords of Iron War's impact on Israel's food sector, Prof. Ayal Kimhi Voice

The Jerusalem Post, Dec 26th 2023

Triwax Center reveals why honeybees are dying

Fewer wildflower choices thwart bees’ natural inclination to choose a balanced diet and they suffer cognitively from lack of omega-3 acids. Experiments performed at Israel’s Benjamin Triwaks Bee Research Center at Hebrew University’s Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture in Rehovot, revealed that, like humans, bees consuming an unhealthy ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids develop cognitive deficiencies.

They cannot simply choose pollen from flowers high in omega-3 because increasing urbanization has decimated many kinds of wildflowers. The resulting nutritional imbalance is a major reason why honeybees, responsible for the pollination of more than 90 commercial food crops across the world, are dying at an alarming rate.

bees

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Under just the right light, ice turns into a twisting labyrinth

Ice absorbs near-infrared light more efficiently than does water, triggering the formation of intricate patterns.

Wilk to produce animal-free cultured and breast milk

Israeli cultured milk company Wilk (formerly Biomilk) recently nabbed a US patent for its proprietary methods and technologies to produce animal-free cultured milk and cell-based human milk, placing the company firmly on track to scale its development and enter a dairy market that was valued at over $800 billion in 2020, and an infant formula industry that is expected to reach over $100 billion by 2026.

The exclusive patent, awarded in February by the US Patent and Trademark Office, protects the company’s intellectual property and covers the methods and systems Wilk developed for the cultivation and separation of milk components from cultured cells, as the company now turns its focus on processes that increase production volume, said Wilk CEO Tomer Aizen.

For the animal-derived cultured milk, Wilk uses mammal cells “that are then grown and cultivated” in bioreactors, combined with a “secret sauce,” Aizen told The Times of Israel in a videoconference interview in February, referring to processes based on a decade of proprietary research by Dr. Nurit Argov-Argaman and Maggie Levy of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

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