Rendering of the planned building
G LO B A L E D G E
New Home for Nano The Roman Abramovich Building for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology will give TAU a significant edge in the field
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Imagine a building that brings together an entire community of scientists working on the nanoscale to experiment side-by-side. A building where they can manipulate the basic building blocks of life to develop new cures for cancer and drug delivery systems; methods for tissue and organ regeneration; more efficient, smaller and faster electronic devices; tiny batteries and new materials for solar energy harvesting; and many additional inventions that will improve the quality of our lives. This vision will soon be realized through the construction of the Roman Abramovich Building which will be located on the eastern side of the campus, adjacent to Beit Hatfutsot – Museum of the Jewish People. It will house TAU’s Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, established 18 years ago, which unites 90 research groups from across campus. Constant growth prompted the
Center to embark upon this ambitious new building project. Founding donor Roman Abramovich committed $30 million toward the design and construction of the building, while additional supporters have stepped up with major gifts. The building will enable the Nano Center to double its graduate student body from 60 to 120 and will help attract top young scientists from abroad, including returning Israeli researchers and post-docs from leading overseas institutions. The design of the building was selected through an international architectural competition won by Michel Roman & Associates of France. The ground floor of the building will house the Chaoul Center for Nanoscale Systems, a core laboratory with a sophisticated infrastructure and magnification equipment that will serve some 50 TAU teams as well as research groups from
other academic institutions and from industry. The first and second floors will comprise laboratories for specific researchers. There will also be ample space for events, workshops and seminars. The second floor will house the Sagol Center for Regenerative Biotechnology, where nanoscientists are already engineering a new generation of biomaterials that can be used to regenerate diseased organs and body parts such as the heart, brain, spinal cord, bone, tendons, cartilage and eyes. Director of the Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Prof. Yael Hanein stresses that the building aims to be a welcoming space for the exchange and circulation of ideas and to facilitate synergy between engineers, physicists, chemists and biologists. In addition, the building will contain elements of interest to the public. “We want the facility to have educational value,” she says.
