Faculty Excellence Scholarship Recipients: Outstanding Papers – Spring 2026

Pushing the Boundaries of Medical Research! 🏆📖
We are thrilled to announce the winners of the BME Excellence scholarship for the best published papers of the Spring 2026 semester.

The Faculty of Biomedical Engineering encourages research excellence and the publication of articles in leading scientific journals. Our outstanding PhD students continue to demonstrate how cutting-edge academic research paves the way for tomorrow’s life-saving clinical technologies.

Join us in celebrating our brilliant researchers:

🌟 Hadas Omer – PhD student at the Garini Lab, for her paper:
“Engineering a Mechanoresponsive DNA Delivery to Narrowed Arteries Origami Capsule for Drug”
The research introduces smart DNA origami nanocapsules designed to autonomously release targeted drugs in response to elevated shear forces in narrowed arteries.
Read the paper

🌟 Noam Zoref – PhD student at the Shechtman Lab, for her paper:
“Symmetric Cancer Spheroid-Fibroblast Organization Revealed in 3D by High-Throughput Microscopy”
The study presents an innovative 3D high-throughput microscopy method that uncovers complex spatial trajectories and interactions between cancer spheroids and fibroblasts
Read the paper

🌟 Raphael Judkiewicz – PhD student at the Behar Lab, for his paper:
“Shifting the retinal foundation models paradigm from slices to volumes for optical coherence tomography”
This research pioneers the use of video foundation models for 3D volumetric analysis of OCT retinal scans to significantly improve the diagnosis of ocular diseases.
Read the paper

We are incredibly proud of your hard work, dedication, and the significant impact your research is making on the future of healthcare. Congratulations! 🚀🧬