Consortiums we manage:
Cultivated Meat Consortium (2022 - 2025)
The Cultivated Meat Consortium, initiated and technically managed by Gaya Savyon, is focused on developing technologies to reduce the production cost of cultivated meat. The consortium's main objectives include:
Establishing optimal source cell lines: Farm animal cell lines that will be banked in cryogenic conditions and will serve as the starter population for each production round. These source cell lines should have a high proliferation rate, unlimited capacity to proliferate, and potential to differentiate into the desired final cell types such as muscle, fat, blood, etc.
Developing scalable, economic, and efficient methods for cell differentiation: In order to produce cultivated meat on a large scale, it is necessary to develop methods for high-efficiency differentiation of cells into the desired types in a scalable format. Jointly differentiating multiple cell types within the same scalable format can also reduce cost, improve quality, and simplify the process.
Reducing costs of growth and differentiation medium: The market share of cultivated meat is predicted to reach 10% in 2030, resulting in the need for enormous quantities of growth factors and serum proteins. In order to make cultivated meat a commodity, the price of these materials must be reduced below $5/gram.
Bioreactors: Traditional animal-cell bioreactors have never been designed to produce tens/hundreds of kilograms of cells. A large factor in determining the production cost will be the yield and efficiency of large-scale production that will be used in the mass production of cultivated meat raw material.
The consortium is led by Tnuva, the biggest alternative protein food manufacturer in Israel and comprises cultured meat startups such as Aleph Pharms and Supermeat, companies developing efficient methods of growth factors production such as BioBetter, as well as companies developing scaffolds and companies developing bioreactors and scale-up technologies, Egmo, and MGT. The consortium also collaborates with academic institutions such as the Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University and Reichman University.
2. SMART - Smart Materials for Agriculture Applications (2020 - 2023)
The SMART consortium is a group of organizations led by Hishtil that is focused on developing smart materials for agriculture applications. The consortium is composed of a diverse group of partners including Luxemburg Chemicals, Tama, ARO, The Technion, and Bar Ilan University. It's main objective is to develop encapsulation technologies for controlled slow release of active environmentally friendly materials, such as aromatic oils, to protect plant roots against viruses like ToBRFV as well as protect the plant foliage.
The consortium's approach to achieving this objective is based on the use of smart materials, which are materials that can respond to changes in their environment and perform specific functions in response to those changes. In the case of the SMART consortium, the smart materials being developed are encapsulation technologies that can slowly release active ingredients in response to changes in the environment, such as changes in temperature or humidity.
The research activities are focused on developing and optimizing these encapsulation technologies, with the ultimate goal of creating a product that can effectively protect plant roots and foliage against viruses like ToBRFV. The consortium's research activities are multidisciplinary and include chemical engineering, materials science, and plant pathology.
The partners bring a wide range of expertise to the table, including expertise in encapsulation technology, smart materials, and plant pathology. The partners work closely together to achieve the consortium's objectives, with the goal of developing a product that can improve crop yields and reduce the use of pesticides in agriculture. The SMART consortium is an example of how cooperation between different organizations can achieve a common goal and bring innovative solutions to the field of agriculture.
3. ART - Assembly by Robotic Technologies. (2019 - 2023)
The Assembly by Robotic Technology (ART) consortium is focused on developing robotic technologies for the industrial assembly of Linear Deformable Objects (LDOs). Examples of LDO include electric wiring in electric cabinets and medical tubing assembly in medical kits such as infusion packs. The consortium is led by Polygon and includes leading companies such as Siemens, as well as innovative startups like Feelit. It also collaborates with academic institutions such as the Technion, Tel Aviv University, and Ben Gurion University.
The technologies developed by the ART consortium include AI and deep learning methodologies, such as PEG (Peg In Hole), which enables the insertion of deformable objects such as electrical cables into the required connector holes. The consortium also develops AI vision algorithms to improve RGBD resolution and accuracy to below a millimeter and an ontology to describe assembly operations. This ontology describes the actions of different actors (such as end effectors, robotic arms, and cameras) that operate in the assembly, enabling algorithms to generate assembly operation code for the robot based on the wiring diagram generated by the electrical engineer. Overall, the goal of the ART consortium is to improve efficiency and precision in the assembly of LDO and thus make the process more reliable and cost-effective.
Consortiums managed in the past:
The Israeli Plastic Industry Consortium (2016-2019)
Developed Superhydrophobic Plastic Surfaces.
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