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Through the use of multidisciplinary approaches in scientific research, Bar-Ilan University is a worldwide leader in achieving breakthroughs in science and technology. This research philosophy is reflected in the university's ambitious nanotechnology efforts, cutting-edge cancer and brain research, as well as efforts to improve the environment.

At the University's Nanotechnology Institute, over 200 faculty members and graduate students from the Departments of Chemistry, Physics, Biology and Mathematics are devoting themselves full-time to nanoscience the study and manipulation of matter at the atomic and molecular scales. Designated as the European Union's Marie Curie Training Site for Novel Fabrication Methods for Nanoscale Materials, the university is already home to 28 nano-based research groups who have made sweeping advances in many areas. Bar-Ilan ranks among the top European institutions for citations in scientific literature.

Bar-Ilan scientists are using multidisciplinary approaches to work on creating artificial vision devices and map higher brain functions such as language and emotion that will give us a real inside view of psychology. Joining in this research is the Leslie and Susan Gonda (Goldschmied) Multidisciplinary Brain Research Centre, The Joseph and Frances Fetter Research Complex and the Neural Imaging Laboratory.

Over the next five years, Bar-Ilan University will be recruiting and absorbing 50 new experimental scientists, many of whom will be dedicated to improving the environment on an Israeli and global level. From this environmental scientific hub will radiate more and more doctoral students who will be specializing in the field, enabling us to train the new generations of "clean-tech."

There is high level research being conducted and published by the many Bar-Ilan faculty members in the Human Sciences, which you can read about in the Research Innovations Spring 2008 issue.

Bar-Ilan Breakthroughs and Scientific and Technology Research include:

• Nanotechnology scientists are designing "bullets" to destroy cancer calls. BIU's Nanotechnology Institute is making major breakthroughs in cancer treatment, optics, water purification, and future computers.
  
• Bar-Ilan is the world's 3rd most-cited source of advanced materials research - the foundation of nanotechnology innovation.
  
• The Susan and Leslie Gonda (Goldschmied) Brain Research Center is the largest facility of its kind in Israel. The Center conducts comprehensive state-of-the-art programs of research, training and education in the interdisciplinary study of the brain, mind and behavior. The Center recently purchased a MEG device that can determine brain wave activity. This is the first of its kind in Israel, and will be utilized by hospitals throughout the country.
  
• The number 2 university in Israel for medical research from cancer and Alzheimer's to prosthetics and bio-ethics.
  
• Turning Israel's "brain drain" into a "brain gain" by absorbing 50 experimental scientists returning from abroad, most of whom will be exploring ways to combat global warming and improve the earth's ecology and environment.
  
• Developing mini-robots to bolster IDF patrols thanks to an algorithm developed at BIU's Computer Science Department, soldiers patrolling enemy borders can be replaced by robots the size and shape of vacuum cleaners.
  
• Bar-Ilan's newly expanded Engineering School Complex features computer laboratories, research laboratories, such as a clean room for manufacturing innovative devices, a super-resolution and imaging laboratory, a laboratory for nanophotonic and optoelectronic devices, a semiconductor laboratory, a robotics laboratory, and a speech processing laboratory, the only one of its kind in Israel.
  
• The Biblical Archaeology Institute has put the Bible back into the limelight, having found the first physical evidence related to the probability that Goliath existed.
  
• A Life Sciences team is finding ways to reduce the release of contaminants into the environment and develop eco-friendly alternatives to hazardous materials. This research will be used to make Israel's "Napa Valley" eco-friendly.