LALS Conference at the Faculty of Engineering

The conference, dedicated to biomedical applications of lasers, included about 200 participants hailing from 15 countries, and proved a huge success for the faculty and for Bar-Ian University

For the first time ever, the LALS (Laser Applications in Life Sciences) conference was held in Israel this past November. The event, organized by Prof. Zeev Zalevsky, was conducted at BIU’s Alexander Kofkin Faculty of Engineering and focused on biomedical uses of lasers. This conference, one of a series of international events on that subject, lasted three days, and entailed of 140 lectures and presentations for about 200 world-leading scientists from the US, Israel, England, Russia, Germany, France, China and more.

The conference was also used as a venue for the launch of the IET contest for young researchers. The winner was Simcha Mirsky, of Tel Aviv University, who developed an IVF microscopy system evaluating the sperm count and quality, and improves IVF treatments’ success rates. 

“The objective for holding this conference in Israel was to introduce the Faculty of Engineering and Bar-Ilan University to world-leading biomedicine experts, and we certainly achieved this goal,” says Prof. Zalevsky, who is also a senior researcher at BIU’s Institute for Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials.

“It wasn’t very simple. The conference was held during a tense period of a heightened conflict in Gaza, and we were very worried about cancellations. Gladly, the scientific program was appealing enough for the world’s leading experts in the field to arrive and participate, and I believe this event will open a gateway to future scientific and academic collaborations.”