Israeli student received the award in Singapore

Yossi Kabessa, who last December created the world’s tiniest Chanukah menorah – out of a piece of dust – has done it again: Kabessa was named winner of the just-completed Global Young Scientists Summit, held in Singapore. Kabessa, who received the award from Singapore’s president Tony Tan Keng Yam, returned to Israel with the Singapore Challenge gold medallion and a $100,000 cash prize.

The Global Young Scientists Summit is an international gathering that brings together bright young researchers from all over the world to address major global challenges, and how chemistry, physics, biology, mathematics, computer science and engineering can help solve them.

The January event brought together 350 post-doctoral fellows and PhD students from around the world, along with internationally eminent science and technology leaders, among them 13 Nobel laureates. Kabessa is the Bryant and Lillian Shiller Fellow at the Hebrew University’s Peter Brojde Center for Innovative Engineering and Computer Science.

This year’s Summit theme was developing methods to deal with urban development and ensure that cities remain healthy places to live. Kabassa proposed using biosensors, based on genetically engineered bacteria to monitor the presence of pollutants and hazardous materials in municipal water supply systems. The project was the outgrowth of another one using biosensors, which were used to detect the presence of landmines, a project that was led by Prof. Aharon Agranat and Prof. Shimshon Belkin at the Hebrew University.