The teens were sent at the initiative of the Jewish Agency and the Weizmann Institute and are part of an Israeli delegation of high school students.

The Jewish Agency’s Sparks of Science program provides academic enrichment for Ethiopian high school students with classes in science, technology, math and English at Israel’s top academic institutions, including the renowned Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot; classes are taught by Weizmann faculty and tutoring sessions by students.

At the space camp, the three students, Ilan, Bat-El and Sarit, will spend a week with high school students from around the world doing science experiments, meeting astronauts and experiencing a simulated flight to the moon. 

Based on principles of active sensing adopted widely in the animal kingdom, the multinational team is developing touch technologies, including a "whiskered" robotic rat. The whiskered robot will be able to quickly locate, identify and capture moving objects.

"The use of touch in the design of artificial intelligence systems has been largely overlooked, until now," said Professor Ehud Ahissar of the Weizmann Institute of Science and one of the researchers. "In nocturnal creatures, or those that inhabit poorly lit places, the use of touch is widely preferred to vision as a primary means of learning and receiving physical information about their surrounding environment."

Several groups of the international consortium are investigating ways in which rats use their whiskers to explore their environment and how the brain processes such information.

"If we succeed in understanding what makes an animal's sense of touch so efficient, we will be able to develop robots imitating this feature and put them to effective use," said Ahissar.

The book Blue Planet was launched by UNESCO's Deputy Assistant Prof. Andras Szollosi-Nagy, Director of the Division of Water Sciences; Weizmann Institute Vice President for Resource Development Prof. Israel Bar-Joseph; Prof. Nir Orion of the Science Teaching Department, who developed the program together with his former student Dr. Orit Ben-Zvi Assaraf; and the Weizmann Institute's Prof. Dan Yakir, Head of the Environmental Sciences and Energy Research Department.

The program focuses particularly on the water cycle in the Earth's ecosystems, and is intended to be an effective learning tool through its wide and systematic approach, including various activities, experiments and field work that will help develop students' thinking skills and understanding.

Date: September 02, 2007

Time: 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM

Station: Fox News Channel

Location: Network

Program: Weekend Live

STEVE CENTANNI, co-anchor: How many times have you been told that cell phones are not bad for your health? Probably a lot. But hold on a second, there's a new study out this week that challenges that notion. Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel have found evidence cell phone radiation does react with your brain cells and that could lead to cancer.

Now here to help us sort all this out, all the facts from the fiction, is Dr. Leigh Vinocur. Thanks, Doctor, for coming in.

Dr. LEIGH VINOCUR (Physician): Absolutely.

CENTANNI: So we heard for a long time that cell phones are not dangerous; this study in Israel says they may be; how do you know what to believe?

Dr. VINOCUR: Well I think the older studies, what they saw was heat damage, that it caused a lot of thermal injury. And this is the first study where they show some biologic effect that is not related to heat. And what they did is they decreased the dosage by 1/10 so heat wasn't a factor.

CENTANNI: I see.

Dr. VINOCUR: But the effect they saw was the start of an enzyme chain that sort of leads to cell division and cell
growth. But I still think there is a long way to go between normal cell growth and the abnormal cell growth that you see in cancer.

CENTANNI: Do you know if anybody has actually had a brain tumor that you can definitely tie to cell phone use?

Dr. VINOCUR: I don't think they've ever been able to definitely tie it to cell phone use, but there have been people who have had brain cancers on the same side that they held their cell phones. The presidential advisor, I believe, had one for the first Bush administration; I'm not 100 percent sure which administration, but circumstantial evidence (sic).
But if you think about how cell phone use has gone up exponentially--and I spoke with the National Cancer Institute--and primary brain cancer, that's what we're talking about, has not changed in the last 20 years; and cell phone use in the last 20 years has skyrocketed.

CENTANNI: So you think by now we would see a spike.

Dr. VINOCUR: You would start to see an increase or a spike in incidents. But I think you just have to be smart about it. Kids are having cell phones today, so you know; don't let them use it all the time. Keep it for an emergency.
We're just learning a little bit more, so I think what this is saying is yes this is a biologic effect, it's not thermal, maybe we should do more research on it. But be smart about it. Right now, Steve, you still have a higher chance of dying using your cell phone while you are driving than developing cancer probably.

CENTANNI: Yeah, you have to be careful about that.

Dr. VINOCUR: Absolutely.

CENTANNI: But there is new evidence, and you are saying we should be cautious, so people should take precautions?

Dr. VINOCUR: Well, I just think if you have a child that you have given a cell phone to, let them use it for emergency reasons only. Don't let them be on it all the time.

CENTANNI: What if they're using the hands-free device or the speakerphone?

Dr. VINOCUR: Well, they haven't really looked at hands-free, but you're still getting a signal close to your head. So that's another place to do it. But I think--to do the studies--but I think what they're saying is now we've shown there is a small biologic effect, OK, but it's normal. You know the enzyme cascade that was started was just for normal cell growth.
Cancer is not normal cell growth, it's abnormal cell growth, and they haven't seen that. In fact, the researchers said they didn't see cancer-causing effects on it; what they saw is it just promoted cell growth in a very short term.

CENTANNI: So the bottom line, more studies need to be done.

Dr. VINOCUR: More studies need to be done. Don't jump to conclusions, but be smart about it.

CENTANNI: Dr. Leigh Vinocur, thanks for joining us.

Dr. VINOCUR: Absolutely.

Prof. Yehiam Prior of the Institute’s Department of Chemical Physics is researching the detection of trace explosives with lasers and developing an innovative method to protect computer conversations from eavesdroppers.

Finding a needle in a haystack
The detection of materials employed in explosives is generally done by moving suspect particles from a given location, such as a person’s clothing, to a detector for analysis. For example, “puff machines,” which are installed in many airports, blow a puff of air across a traveler’s clothes and skin and into a machine. If the traveler has had any contact with a number of “red flag” substances, such molecules will be detected and identified.

Puff machines may be adequate for airport security purposes, but contact detection has limitations, says Prof. Prior.

“Puff machines identify molecules by their mass and the way in which they shatter into their fragments. This is fine for common explosives such as TNT, but it does not work for complex objects such as anthrax. Some compounds may be too similar to other compounds to make a distinction by weight only,” he explains.

Prof. Prior’s laboratory is also working on an innovative method that employs laser light to identify trace explosives. The technique is based on the principle that the reflection of light shined on molecules provides a unique “optical fingerprint” that computers can be trained to identify. Thanks to the special properties of lasers, detection can be done from afar, negating the need to bring a suspect molecule to a machine.

A fascinating aspect of this technology is that pulses of laser light can be shortened and manipulated to selectively excite individual bonds within a molecule before that molecule has a chance to redistribute its excitation within all degrees of freedom. The pulses are so short that they must be measured in “femtoseconds” – one millionth of a billionth of a second.

Using selective excitation by these ultrashort pulses, methods are being developed to identify minute amounts of a material – for example, 10 drops of a hazardous substance in a large lake.

When fully developed, one may envisage a remote sensing laser-based machine that will routinely and nonintrusively monitor crowds and identify people who have been in contact with hazardous substances.

Making computer communication more secure
The word “eavesdropping” conjures up images of listening in on a private telephone conversation from an extension phone in another room. But eavesdropping can easily be done on computer conversations: the message is simply diverted to another computer, read, and sent on its way without the user’s knowledge.

Weizmann scientists are striving to make communication more secure by preventing a message from being read without the knowledge of the intended recipient. One method is to scramble the message so that it is difficult to decipher without knowing the code.

In a good example of Weizmann’s complementary research, Prof. Prior is taking a different approach to this problem. In order to make it impossible to surreptitiously intercept a communication, he has tapped the principles of quantum mechanics by invoking the power of photons, which are massless particles. Single photons can be copied by a computer, but if they are prepared as entangled pairs, any manipulation of one of them can be undeniably traced.

“Photon-tapping is not possible if photon pairs are used, because the connection between the two photons is such that when one is detected the other one, which might be miles away, will tell the difference. Therefore, any conniving listener will leave a clear sign of the intrusion,” explains Prof. Prior.

These are just two examples of projects that will be tackled in the Nancy and Stephen Grand Research Center for Sensors and Security, which is being established at the Institute with a $5 million grant from Nancy and Stephen Grand. The interdisciplinary center will enable Weizmann physicists, chemists, and biologists to work together on useful technologies that make the world a safer place.

“In the next few years, we want to build on our significant strengths and establish several new research groups in these and related fields. This will enable us to develop new methods to win the confrontation between the bad guys and us,” says Prof. Prior.

Michal Schwartz: Uncovering Treatments for Spinal Cord Injuries

Dr. Michal Schwartz, one of Israel’s leading researchers and a senior neurobiologist at Rehovot’s Weizmann Institute of Science, has made such important scientific discoveries that Superman even dropped by to see what she was up to.

The late actor Christopher Reeves, who starred in the Superman movies and became a quadriplegic after a spinal cord injury, came to her lab in 2003. Previously, Schwartz—a leading expert in injury to the central nervous system (CNS)—had gone to his home to report on her experimental technique for treating spinal cord injuries. “I was a very good friend of his,” she recalls sadly. “He was amazed by the high quality of science in Israel and researchers’ urge to be daring.”

Schwartz herself could aptly be described as a superwoman. Married to a Weizmann Institute biophysicist/biochemist, she is the mother of four children, 13 to 33 (including a physician, a clinical psychologist and a bioinformatics specialist), and grandmother of four. Born and raised in Israel and married at 21, Schwartz earned her bachelor’s degree in chemistry and went straight on to earn her doctorate in chemical immunology from Weizmann at 26. She did postdoctoral research at the University of Michigan and was already a Weizmann professor at 35.

In 1996, she founded Proneuron Biotechnologies to turn her discoveries into therapy. The company is developing and commercializing a treatment for acute spinal cord injuries, as well as other treatments using the immune system for chronic neurologicaldiseases that until now have been regarded as incurable. Her research team has shown that Copaxone, a multiple sclerosis drug developed at the Weizmann Institute, might stop or at least slow down progressive eyesight loss due to nerve degeneration in glaucoma.

Her 1998 Nature Medicinearticle—which showed that the immune system, thought to be harmful in the event of CNS injury, can help it to recover—ran counter to conventional wisdom. “Before I sent the article for publication, one colleague at Weizmann advised me to hide it in a drawer instead, as it would hurt my reputation. But I agree with Abraham Lincoln that if you really believe in some thing, don’t waste time trying to persuade others that you are right. Listen to your internal voice. If you are wrong, 10 angels won’t help you.”

Schwartz sees science as a way of life, but her family is very important to her. “I always ran to work, came back at 5 p.m., devoted four hours to them and returned to the lab. I made sure to attend parent–teacher meetings and important events. When my youngest complained I travel a lot and I asked him if he wanted me to abandon my career, he said no because ‘it does you good.’ It’s very intensive, but if you love it, you broadcast it and your kids value perseverance and dedication.”

Although more Israeli women are studying science and pursuing their doctorates, she is disappointed that more don’t rise higher to become department heads. “I want to show women that it’s possible to have a family and a science career. It isn’t easy, as women get no discounts, but it can be done. I’ve found that women scientists are less dogmatic than men and bring more boldness to their work.” Schwartz is certainly a good example.

As a result, about 6,000 people a day — most of them children — die from water-borne diseases. Vestergaard Frandsen, a Danish textile company that supplies water filters to the Carter Center guinea worm eradication program and mosquito-killing plastic tarps to refugee camps, has come up with a new invention meant to render dangerous water drinkable.

The invention is called Lifestraw, a plastic tube with seven filters: graduated meshes with holes as fine as 6 microns (a human hair is 50 to 100 microns), followed by resin impregnated with iodine and another of activated carbon. It can be worn around the neck and lasts a year.

Lifestraw isn’t perfect, but it filters out at least 99.99 percent of many parasites and bacteria, the demons in most fatal cases of diarrhea. It is less effective against viruses, which are much smaller and cause diseases like polio and hepatitis, and it wouldn’t protect American backpackers against the parasite giardia. Nor does it filter out metals like arsenic, and it has a slight iodine aftertaste (not necessarily a bad thing in the large stretches of the globe with iodine deficiency).

It can be manufactured for about $3, but it needs more field-testing. Only about 100,000 have been handed out, 70,000 to earthquake victims in Kashmir last year. Already in the works, however, is a Lifestraw toddler version — which will be squeezable.

Despite the fact that the NAFTHE decision is only “advisory,” it is likely that many will view it as an inducement to act along the lines of the motion. As an Israeli academic, I find myself wondering just which Israeli policies these anonymous potential boycotters would like me to publicly dissociate myself from? Should I dissociate myself from the policy to encourage joint Palestinian-Israeli science projects, the policy to admit students and faculty to our universities regardless of their race or religion, or the policy to continue withdrawals from occupied territory if the Palestinians will only stop using such territory as launching pads for further attacks on us? Or perhaps the boycotters would like me to dissociate myself from the security barrier that has markedly reduced the number of deaths of Israeli civilians from homicide bombers? If the latter, unfortunately, it seems the boycotters would like to see us choose between death and damnation.

How will the boycotters decide who has and who has not publicly dissociated themselves from Israeli policies? In the absence of a “public dissociation commissar” to categorize myself and my colleagues in Israeli academia into those who are boycottable versus those who are not, I would like to issue the following challenge to those currently quietly supporting this boycott from the safety of their anonymity. I hereby publicly identify myself as an Israeli academic who has not dissociated himself from the Israeli government policies described above, and challenge the boycott supporters to reciprocate by publicly identifying themselves as supporting this boycott. After all, if they want to support a boycott policy that is the antithesis of academic freedom and is reminiscent of the darkest days of Lysenkoism in Soviet academia, at the very least they should have the courage to stand behind their misguided convictions.

NEW WEIZMANN HEAD.

The next head of the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel, says science can “bridge cultural differences” and should “never be a tool of politics.”

In December, particle physicist Daniel Zajfman, 47 (below), will become the 10th— and youngest ever—president of the 72-year-old institute. Zajfman, who has been at Weizmann for 15 years, wants to strengthen curiosity-driven research and preserve “ complete academic freedom.”

Weizmann has 2500 students and faculty members whose links to the rest of the world, he says, are “critical to the future of the institute.” But Zajfman admits that recruitment is a challenge, and he condemns the failed  attempt earlier this year by U.K. academics to impose a boycott of Israeli institutions (Science, 2 June, p. 1289). “Why should they punish scientists for what the government is doing?” he asks. “Why not boycott the United States for what its [military] is doing in Iraq?” Zajfman succeeds plant scientist Ilan Chet, who is stepping down after 5 years.

The genetic code specifies all the proteins that a cell makes. The second code, superimposed on the first, sets the placement of the nucleosomes, miniature protein spools around which the DNA is looped. The spools both protect and control access to the DNA itself.

The discovery, if confirmed, could open new insights into the higher order control of the genes, like the critical but still mysterious process by which each type of human cell is allowed to activate the genes it needs but cannot access the genes used by other types of cell.

The new code is described in the current issue of Nature by Eran Segal of the Weizmann Institute in Israel and Jonathan Widom of Northwestern University in Illinois and their colleagues.

There are about 30 million nucleosomes in each human cell. So many are needed because the DNA strand wraps around each one only 1.65 times, in a twist containing 147 of its units, and the DNA molecule in a single chromosome can be up to 225 million units in length.

Biologists have suspected for years that some positions on the DNA, notably those where it bends most easily, might be more favorable for nucleosomes than others, but no overall pattern was apparent. Drs. Segal and Widom analyzed the sequence at some 200 sites in the yeast genome where nucleosomes are known to bind, and discovered that there is indeed a hidden pattern.

Knowing the pattern, they were able to predict the placement of about 50 percent of the nucleosomes in other organisms.

The pattern is a combination of sequences that makes it easier for the DNA to bend itself and wrap tightly around a nucleosome. But the pattern requires only some of the sequences to be present in each nucleosome binding site, so it is not obvious. The looseness of its requirements is presumably the reason it does not conflict with the genetic code, which also has a little bit of redundancy or wiggle room built into it.

Having the sequence of units in DNA determine the placement of nucleosomes would explain a puzzling feature of transcription factors, the proteins that activate genes. The transcription factors recognize short sequences of DNA, about six to eight units in length, which lie just in front of the gene to be transcribed.

But these short sequences occur so often in the DNA that the transcription factors, it seemed, must often bind to the wrong ones. Dr. Segal, a computational biologist, believes that the wrong sites are in fact inaccessible because they lie in the part of the DNA wrapped around a nucleosome. The transcription factors can only see sites in the naked DNA that lies between two nucleosomes.

The nucleosomes frequently move around, letting the DNA float free when a gene has to be transcribed. Given this constant flux, Dr. Segal said he was surprised they could predict as many as half of the preferred nucleosome positions. But having broken the code, “We think that for the first time we have a real quantitative handle” on exploring how the nucleosomes and other proteins interact to control the DNA, he said.

The other 50 percent of the positions may be determined by competition between the nucleosomes and other proteins, Dr. Segal suggested.

Several experts said the new result was plausible because it generalized the longstanding idea that DNA is more bendable at certain sequences, which should therefore favor nucleosome positioning.

“I think it’s really interesting,” said Bradley Bernstein, a biologist at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Jerry Workman of the Stowers Institute in Kansas City said the detection of the nucleosome code was “a profound insight if true,” because it would explain many aspects of how the DNA is controlled.

The nucleosome is made up of proteins known as histones, which are among the most highly conserved in evolution, meaning that they change very little from one species to another. A histone of peas and cows differs in just 2 of its 102 amino acid units. The conservation is usually attributed to the precise fit required between the histones and the DNA wound around them. But another reason, Dr. Segal suggested, could be that any change would interfere with the nucleosomes’ ability to find their assigned positions on the DNA.

In the genetic code, sets of three DNA units specify various kinds of amino acid, the units of proteins. A curious feature of the code is that it is redundant, meaning that a given amino acid can be defined by any of several different triplets. Biologists have long speculated that the redundancy may have been designed so as to coexist with some other kind of code, and this, Dr. Segal said, could be the nucleosome code.

“Rather than listening to the radio, I listen to my iPod because it’s my music,” he said. “There are no news or commercial interruptions, so I get to be in my own little world.”

Allen is among millions of users of Apple Computer iPods and other MP3 digital devices who depend on their tiny music players as a prime means of escape from the cares of the day.

Their numbers are growing. According to market tracker IDC, 171 million MP3 players will be shipped this year worldwide.

Easy To Get Absorbed

While people have been using portable music technology for decades - from transistor radios to Sony Walkmans - MP3 device users are more apt to become absorbed in their entertainment. That’s because they can play personally selected, high sound quality digitized music for hours, uninterrupted, with no need to flip a cassette tape or endure the ranting of some disc jockey.

Studies show that teens and young adults are spending the most time listening to their MP3 music. In a recent survey by the Harris Group, a Waterbury, Conn.-based market research firm, respondents from ages 13 to 19 said they have their MP3 devices on for four hours a day on average. Respondents in the 20-to-34 age group said their devices are on 2.7 hours a day.

With so much of the world’s population piping nonstop music into their ears for extended time periods, some critics wonder about the health and sociological impacts of these devices. They fear MP3 players are creating a population whose brains are overloaded on technology and out of touch with the rest of the world.

One neurobiology professor is singing a more positive tune. Rafael Malach of Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science has published a study in the journal Neuron with a different take on iPods, video games and similar technologies.

His study found that when individuals are preoccupied with intense entertainment activities, part of the brain’s cerebral cortex shuts itself down for a while.

That, says Malach, is important because, rather than overloading our brains, these activities provide a release that helps the brain operate more efficiently, and better focus on tasks.

“Our results show that, when presented with a very demanding sensory task, the part of the brain involved in self-awareness shuts off,” said Malach, a visiting professor at New York University. “This is our brain’s attempt to optimize its process. At some point being conscious of yourself interferes with the learning. It can be better to let go and be absorbed by the task you’re trying to do rather than be aware of yourself and get distracted.” Malach adds that by letting the brain turn off the civilized aspects of ourselves, these technologies help create a state of escapism similar to that of Eastern meditation, a state one normally attains through discipline and study.

Marlene Goldman, a San Francisco yoga teacher, writer and radio DJ, enjoys her iPod and Eastern meditation. She doesn’t agree they have a similar effect on her brain.

Being ‘In The Moment’
“The iPod and meditation are both good tools, but they do different things for different reasons,” she said. “I meditate occasionally to quiet all the chatter, so I can get to the bigger picture. It’s kind of like brain surgery, delving into your mind to see what’s really going on.”

Like Allen, Goldman says she’s more apt to use her iPod to completely zone out.

“It’s as if my brain goes numb,” she said. “The iPod allows me to relax, but not to delve into my mind and focus the way meditation does.”

However one interprets the goals or effect of Eastern meditation, Malach sees contradictions in the findings of his study.

“Eastern and Western philosophies present two ways of looking at the world,” he said. “The Western perspective is often about somebody being in control. Eastern philosophy is more about being in the moment and letting go of the self.

“It’s ironic that this brain research involves a Western type of technology, but its results are more analogous to some Eastern philosophies, which emphasize shutting off the inner observer to truly experience reality.”

In a breakthrough study published today in the online edition of Science, scientists explain why aerosols -- tiny particles suspended in air pollution and smoke -- sometimes stop clouds from forming and in other cases increase cloud cover. Clouds not only deliver water around the globe, they also help regulate how much of the sun's warmth the planet holds. The capacity of air pollution to absorb energy from the sun is the key.

Image: Large plumes of smoke can act as "cloud killers" because the tiny particles in this form of air pollution absorb a lot of sunlight. NASA's Aqua satellite caught this cloud-suppression process in action over western Brazil and Bolivia in September 2005. Credit: NASA

"When the overall mixture of aerosol particles in pollution absorbs more sunlight, it is more effective at preventing clouds from forming. When pollutant aerosols are lighter in color and absorb less energy, they have the opposite effect and actually help clouds to form," said Lorraine Remer of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Remer worked closely with the study's lead author, the late Yoram Kaufman of Goddard, on previous research into this perplexing "aerosol effect."

The effect of the planet's constantly changing cloud cover has long been a problem for climate scientists. How clouds change in response to greenhouse-gas warming and air pollution will have a major impact on future climate.

Using this new understanding of how aerosol pollution influences cloud cover, Kaufman and co-author Ilan Koren of Israel's Weizmann Institute estimate the impact worldwide could be as much as a 5 percent net increase in cloud cover. In polluted areas, these cloud changes can change the availability of fresh water and regional temperatures.

In previous research by the authors, the opposite effects that aerosols have on clouds were seen in different parts of the world using data from NASA satellites. But these observations alone could not confirm that the aerosols themselves were causing the clouds to change.

Image: Some types of air pollution can help clouds to form and storms to grow stronger. In this April 2006 image from the NASA Terra satellite, a plume of aerosol pollution from the Anatahan volcano in the western Pacific Ocean leaves more clouds in its wake. Credit: NASA

To tackle this problem, Kaufman and Koren assembled a massive database of global observations that strongly suggests it is the darkness (absorbs sunlight) or brightness (reflects sunlight) of aerosol pollution that cause pollution to act as a cloud killer or a cloud maker. These measurements were culled from the NASA-sponsored Aerosol Robotic Network of ground-based instruments at nearly 200 sites worldwide.

No matter where in the world the measurements were taken or in what season, the scientists saw the same pattern. There were lots of clouds when light-reflecting pollution filled the air, but many fewer clouds were recorded in the presence of light-absorbing aerosols.

NASA’s satellites, computer models, and technology will continue to advance our understanding of how aerosol pollution affects the Earth’s climate. NASA’s "A-Train" of formation-flying satellites, now with the cloud-piercing instruments onboard the Cloudsat and CALIPSO spacecrafts, is helping answer challenging questions such as the role of clouds in global warming and the influence of aerosols on rainfall and hurricanes.

Polytechnic is the second oldest private engineering and science institution in the U.S., and its Planning Committee helped establish WIS by expanding the Daniel Sieff Research Institute. The Planning Committee was created at the end of World War II under the chairmanship of Prof. Herman Mark, often called the “father of polymer science” and a close associate of Dr. Chaim Weizmann, who was known as, among other things, the “father of industrial fermentation.” In fact, as Prof. Mark states in his memoir, Dr. Weizmann personally asked him to serve ashead of the Planning Committee. Another of the committee members was Ephraim Katzir, then Prof. Mark’s post-doctoral student, who would later become a Weizmann Institute professor and Israel’s fourth president.

The Planning Committee, established in 1945, and the Weizmann Institute, established in 1949 (the Sieff Institute was established in 1934), were conceived during a time of war and continued to support one another during the periods of confl ict and peace that followed.

Even during Israel’s War of Independence, when equipment intended for WIS could not be shipped to Israel because of security reasons, the two institutions remained in contact. Polytechnic directly supported WIS during the war by storing this equipment until it could be safely transported. The university even went so far as to set up a temporary laboratory for Dr. Weizmann  and other Sieff Institute scientists.

Speaking at the gathering that honored this long- term partnership, Prof. Harold Kaufman, director of Polytechnic’s extension program in Israel, said that in addition to Prof. Katzir, more than one thousand Israelis were educated at Polytechnic University. As a result of this cross-education, the largest concentration of Polytechnic alumni outside the United States is in Israel.

One of the goals of the Planning Committee was to attract young, promising scientists to the then- new Weizmann Institute. This goal remains important to both institutions; Prof. Kaufman stated that the university continues to contribute to educating future leaders of science and technology in Israel through its Master of Science program at WIS, which focuses on science and high-tech management. A number of students have pursued this program in parallel with their graduate studies at the Institute.

In addition to Prof. Kaufman’s speech, the event included a videotaped address by Polytechnic University president Prof. David Chang; remarks by Weizmann Institute president Ilan Chet, and Dr. Uzia Galil, founder and former CEO of Elron Electronic Industries; screening of a video entitled “Inspiration & Innovation: 150 Years of Discovery & Invention at Polytechnic University”; and a luncheon.

Three keynote lectures were delivered by Polytechnic alumni. Prof. Israel (Izzy) Borovich of Tel Aviv University’s Faculty of Management and president of Arkia Israeli Airlines and Knafaim-Arkia Holdings, who shortly after the event was appointed chairman of El Al, spoke about his move from academia to the world of business.

Amos Raviv, deputy chairman of the Israel Port and Railways Authority, provided advice to new alumni of Polytechnic’s Israel extension who intend to pursue doctoral studies.

David Rubin, chairman of the board of Starling Advanced Communications and CEO of Tech Capital and the TIX Group, spoke about his transition from the world of business to public service, referring to his tenure as Israel’s economic attaché to North Africa. He also addressed the enormous positive impact on his career of his own studies in the US, and stressed the importance of global education for a global economy.

Sitting in his book-lined office, Professor Jacob Karni likes to quote the French novelist Jules Verne.

"Yes, my friends," says Prof Karni, director of the Centre for Energy Research at the Weizmann Institute of Science, quoting from Verne's 1874 novel The Mysterious Island.

"I foresee that in the future, water will be used as fuel... water will be the coal of the future." The professor enthuses about the French author's vision 130 years ago that the world's reliance on fossil fuels is unsustainable. But he disagrees with Verne, famous for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, in one fundamental respect. Whereas the French writer saw water as the fuel for the future, the Israeli scientist says the future lies with solar energy.

Suntan

"Even if we were to dam every river in the world and put wind turbines where ever there is wind," says Prof Karni, "it wouldn't be enough to provide for our energy needs. But with solar energy we could meet the world's energy demands."

For the last 16 years, he has worked with colleagues at the Weizmann Institute, situated in a leafy campus in the Israeli city of Rehovot, to make renewable energy a viable alternative. The professor, who regularly works a 12-hour day, researches how to harness solar energy in a cost effective way and then transport the energy to the user. The institute has been researching solar panels that produce a greater yield of energy. "One of the big problems with solar energy is that the energy is very diluted," says Prof Karni. "It can give you a suntan but not much else."

Snags ahead

But one of Prof Karni's projects has been to use solar energy to produce a non-polluting synthetic fuel that could be used, for example, to power cars. Last summer, the Weizmann Institute published research that was "a step towards the solution", he says.

Using solar power energy, zinc oxide was heated to 1,200 C. The temperature splits the ore, releasing oxygen and creating gaseous zinc, which is then condensed into powder. When the zinc powder reacts with water, it produces hydrogen that could power a car. The chemical reaction produces no greenhouse gases and the zinc oxide can be recycled into zinc and the process starts all over again. Prof Karni says that the research demonstrated that the process is achievable, but problems remain. For every kilogram of hydrogen gas produced, you would need 60 kg of zinc, which is not feasible on a large scale, he insists. 

New Manhattan Project?

But with a map of China hanging in his office, Prof Karni insists we have to think big. "We could put solar panels here," he says, pointing at west China, "and this could provide the energy for the east of China where most people live. We just need to devise an effective way to transport the energy." The massive consumption in global energy coupled with rising pollution has made finding a renewable energy alternative more important, he declares.

Over 3.5 billion people live in countries where the consumption of energy more than doubled from 1990 to 2003, according to the Energy Information Administration. If countries were to form a "Manhattan project" for solar energy, employing the best minds and ploughing enormous resources into research, renewable energy could be challenging fossil fuels in five years, the professor believes. But that moment of reckoning has yet to arrive. "We will only find the solution when it's really urgent," he says.

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has a far higher success rate, with some 80% of patients responding positively. ECT, however, is a highly invasive treatment involving general anesthesia, with many serious side effects ranging from dizziness and headaches to temporary or even permanent memory impairment.

Now an Israeli company, Brainsway, has developed a new non-invasive deep Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) treatment that it claims can effectively treat depression without any of the negative side effects of drugs or ECT. The treatment, which Brainsway's founders believe could revolutionize the whole psychiatric care market, does not require anesthetic. Instead, users describe the experience as a gentle shaking or tickling of the scalp. "A bit like a massage," Dr. Abraham Zangen, one of the inventors of the device, told ISRAEL21c.

TMS is still a relatively experimental area of medicine that is primarily being used for research purposes and clinical trials only. Though widely recognized as a potential treatment for a number of mental disorders including depression, the problem until now has been that existing TMS devices can only penetrate about half an inch beneath the surface of the cortex. This is deep enough to treat some disorders like migraine (a new TMS device to treat migraines is now being tested in the US,) but not deep enough to treat more difficult mental health conditions.

Brainsway's founders, however, have invented a new TMS coil configuration that has been designed to generate sufficient magnetic field strength to stimulate neurons which are located 5 to 6 cm. inside the brain mass without posing a hazard. This, according to Zangen, means the device can potentially be used to treat a wide range of mental illnesses including depression, Alzheimers, Parkinson's disease, addiction, stroke, drug abuse, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and schizophrenia.

The magnetic coil, which is placed on specific areas of the patient's scalp, sends strong directed magnetic pulses through the brain to stimulate the Nucleus Accumbens (the part of the brain responsible for positive stimuli) and the neurons connected to it. "By repeated artificial stimulation of electrical activity created by the coil, we boost the sensitivity of these circuits so they will work more efficiently," says Dr. Hilik Lewkovitch, at Brainsway.

The result is that the next time natural stimulation occurs, such as something pleasant that the brain responds to, the patient will respond more strongly, enjoy it more, and seek to repeat the experience. By intensifying sensitivity this causes the patient to respond normally to the environment.

What makes the device so unique in terms of treatment is that unlike ECT or drugs, it stimulates a specific area within the brain, rather than the whole brain or body. This is a well-known problem for drug therapies used to treat depression. Both ECT and drug treatments affect the entire body, even though the intention is to only stimulate certain locations deep within the brain which are thought to be the active agents for depression and other psychiatric illnesses.

Uzi Sofer, Brainsway's CEO, believes the company's device could become the first line of treatment for depression, a replacement not only for ECT, but also for anti-depressants themselves. "It may become the safe and effective treatment for a person's first depressive episode," he predicts.

Brainsway has undertaken successful animal trials at the Weizmann Institute of Science, where the device was tested as a treatment for depression, addiction, and PTSD. "These were a great success," says Lewkovitch. From June to November last year, the company held its first clinical trials to test the safety of the treatment. Thirty-five people took part in the study that was held at the School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University. "We found that not only was the device safe with no obvious side effects, but that even healthy patients who did not suffer from depression reported an improvement in positive feeling and some cognitive improvement," says Lewkovitch. "This was very good and encouraging news."

The company is now preparing to begin a multi-center clinical trial this month in three or four locations around the world. This will test the efficacy of the treatment, specifically related to emotional and cognitive improvements. The trial, which should take between seven to eight months, is for moderate to severely depressed patients who have not responded to medication.

Brainsway is now meeting with the FDA to approve its clinical strategy. The company hopes to receive FDA approval and CE approval at the same time, enabling the company to begin sales in both Europe and the United States in 2008 or 2009. The company's goal is to start by targeting depression, and then move to other areas of mental health.

In 2005, Brainsway carried out a study on a single Alzheimer's patient. The patient, who is the wife of a well-known physician in Israel, had been treated with every new cutting edge drug and cognitive treatment available, but her situation was getting worse. The family won approval for an emergency treatment with the Brainsway device. Brainsway carried out two weeks of treatment, directing the magnetic pulses at brain regions related to Alzheimer's. The patient was given 60 pulses of TMS a day in half-hour treatments.

"The case study was very promising," says Zangen. "The patient showed cognitive improvement in remembering names and in motoric exercises. When we tested her after treatment she was able to remember more family names and her score was in the normal range of memory for her age." The patient did not, however, show total improvement in other aspects of memory and cognition. The company plans to carry out another longer-term study with the same patient. The family of the patient has now applied for permission to continue the trial with the Israeli Health Ministry.

Brainsway is also now about to sign an agreement with a well-known US laboratory that plans to carry out a study of the company's device on patients suffering from Alzheimer's and autism.

The market for treatment of mental and brain diseases is enormous. Today the annual global market for Central Nervous System therapies is in the region of $65 million. Of this, every year, worldwide, some $15.9 billion is spent on depression therapies. Brainsway estimates that the worldwide deep TMS market for depression treatment alone could reach $20 billion over the next 10 years.

The technology behind Brainsway was invented by Israeli researchers, Zangen, and Yiftach Roth while they were working at the US National Institute of Health (NIH) in the late 1990s. It took four years to invent the new deep TMS coil, and their work was patented by the NIH in 2001. Soon after, articles began to appear in the science press about the new device.

The device attracted the attention of a well-known Israeli high-tech entrepreneur who was interested in creating a company to develop the patent. He set up Brainsway with a number of other investors, including Sofer, and incorporated it in Delaware in 2003. A short time later, he opened a subsidiary in Jerusalem.

The company now employs eight full-time workers and numerous sub-contractors from the Weizmann Institute amongst other places. So far the company has raised several million dollars in investment from three internal investors, Dr. David Zechut, a gynecologist at Hadassah Medical Organization; Avner Hagai, Brainsway's president; and Sofer.

Sofer admits that the company has started looking for large multinational partners such as medical device companies that can help the company take the device to the market. Already Brainsway has been approached by a number of companies who are interested in the device.

"My goal is that Brainsway will become a multi-centre of development, creating a number of different applications for this technology," says Sofer. "Depression is only the first step for Brainsway. We hope to develop many new applications for Alzheimer's, PTSD, and addiction. We want to specialize in R&D, and hope to find strategic partners that can do the other work of marketing and sales."

"Within a decade hopefully it will be clear that this is a revolution in psychiatry," says Zangen. "This will become the standard way of treating many diseases that today are treated poorly and with too many side effects."

If true, boosting the immune system may be one way to protect against age-associated learning and memory problems, said Michal Schwartz, lead author of a paper on the research published this month in Nature Neuroscience.

Schwartz, a professor of neuroimmunology at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, and colleagues discovered that immune cells in the blood called T-lymphocytes are critical to brain cell proliferation. It is an unusual autoimmune response, she said.

T-lymphocytes normally enter the brain to patrol for signs of infection. But scientists have discovered that these immune cells recognize a normal brain protein as foreign and mount an immune response by pumping out activated microglia, cells that produce inflammation. These microglia support the birth of new neurons in these brain regions.

Schwartz came to this idea when she identified large amounts of activated microglia in the brain regions that give rise to new neurons in the adult brain. One of these regions, the hippocampus, is the seat of learning and memory.

She studied animals born without an immune system and found production of new brain cells in adulthood was severely limited. She repeated the same study in animals lacking the ability to make T-lymphocytes. Again, the animals had trouble growing new neurons.

As she expected, stimulating the production of T-lymphocytes led to the birth of even more neurons than expected.

In both cases, the animals showed marked differences in their ability to learn. Those without the T-lymphocyte autoimmunity failed to learn a simple water maze task. Animals with large numbers of T-lymphocytes learned to navigate the water maze much faster than even normal animals.

"It's a novel idea that's backed up by strong data," added Michael Chopp, vice chairman of neurology at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. Schwartz suspects that similar immune processes are at work in the human brain and that an aging immune system could set the stage for dementia.

It all started with glaucoma. Once thought to result primarily from high pressure in the eyeball constricting the optic nerve, the disease has lately come to be seen as a form of neurodegeneration, propagating from the injured optic nerve to healthy cells in the brain. Before monkey studies had demonstrated as much, neuroimmunologist Michal Schwartz of the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel, observed in the late 1990s that crushing a small portion of a rat optic nerve creates a large zone of sickened cells. She and her team also found that T cells, the immune system's attackers, gathered at these wounds.

Curious if the small accumulation was helpful or hurtful, the researchers injected different types of T cells into rats with optic nerve injury. Surprisingly, rats given T cells specific to myelin, the fatty sheath coating neurons, retained three times as many functional retinal ganglion cells as rats injected with other T cells. In subsequent experiments, rats genetically engineered to lack T cells, as well as rats insensitive to myelin autoimmune reactions, fared worse in glaucoma models than normal rats did.

Introducing antimyelin T cells to people would most likely cause brain inflammation, so Schwartz looked for a compound that would induce a weaker reaction. Copaxone, a peptide drug approved for the treatment of multiple sclerosis, fit the bill because the body's immune response against it also weakly targets myelin. And indeed, rodents vaccinated with Copaxone after insults to their optic nerves retained more retinal ganglion cells than untreated animals did.

Schwartz argues that the effect exploits a natural "protective autoimmunity" and has championed it as a more general measure for protecting the brain from disease. Too much autoimmunity causes brain disease, but too little may exacerbate the gamut of neurodegenerative conditions, she asserts. "It's a beautiful hypothesis," remarks Hartmut Wekerle of the Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology in Martinsried, Germany, but one that has split neuroimmunologists. "I think Schwartz's theory is right because it's been shown in a number of animal models," says Howard Weiner of the Center of Neurologic Diseases at the Brig­ham and Women's Hospital in Boston. "There's a reasonable chance it'll work in humans." In further support, Gendelman's group reported in 2004 that transferring Copaxone-specific immune cells to mice protects neurons in a model of Parkinson's disease.

The evidence is mixed, however. Spinal cord researcher Phillip Popovich of Ohio State University has been unable to mimic results from Schwartz's lab, in which transferred T cells protect spinal cord tissue. "We get what the conventional wisdom would expect: we get more problems," Popovich reports. The discrepancy probably results from subtle differences in the models employed, which implies that the effect is not robust enough to treat spinal cord injuries, he contends.

Mice have been cured of their versions of many diseases that still afflict humans, notes neuropathologist V. Hugh Perry of the University of Southampton in England. And unlike lab rat strains, individual people vary in their immune responses, creating the risk that vaccination will cause harmful autoimmune reactions, as occurred in the interrupted Alzheimer's trial. Perry acknowledges, however, that in some cases, "the regulation of inflammation is not as precise as it might be. If you can induce T cells to produce anti-inflammatory molecules, that may be a good thing."

Gendelman sees obstacles ahead before the great potential of protective autoimmunity, as he describes it, can be exploited. "How this occurs is a big black box," he says. The positive evidence has piqued some biotech interest, though: Israel's Teva Pharmaceutical Industries is investigating Copaxone and a similar peptide in models of glaucoma and several other neurodegenerative conditions. If the company moves ahead with clinical trials, that black box may open up.

WHO GAVE IT: Albert Willner, retired orthopedic surgeon, Del Ray Beach, Fla.

WHO GOT IT: The American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science, New York  

HOW MUCH: $20 million, paid within ten years

BY REQUEST: The gift will create an endowment to support scientific education and research at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.  

YOUR NAME HERE: The Willner Family Leadership Institute
 

HOW IT HAPPENED: Mr. Willner, 87 years old, grew up in Newark, N.J., the son of Polish immigrants. He supported himself through medical school and practiced medicine in New Jersey for 48 years. While on vacation in Jamaica about 30 years ago, Dr. Willner met investor Max Oppenheimer, and the two men became friends. Dr. Willner says he invested $50,000 − his life savings at the time − with Mr. Oppenheimer, who tripled his investment, then lost it all in three years. To make up for this loss, he says, Mr. Oppenheimer invested $250,000 of his own money on his friend's behalf. That effort was more successful. "I made a good living in orthopedics, but I made my money in investing," Dr. Willner says.

He learned of the Weizmann Institute − which focuses on interdisciplinary graduate research in the sciences − about 20 years ago when he met one of its researchers at a party. Dr. Willner says he was impressed that such a small institute was doing cutting-edge research reported in American medical journals.

Dr. Willner is making this gift to the institute's American fund-raising arm, which raises about 60% of the donations that the Weizmann Institute receives each year. His gift will create an endowment that will eventually generate between $1 million and $1.5 million annually. It will fund work in three areas: scientific research (including equipment and salaries), scientific education (such as fellowships for graduate students) and the development of lay leaders through seminars and other initiatives that raise the institute's profile.

HIV is a master of attach silencing the T-cells that usually alert the immune system at the moment of invasion. But until now, little was known about how it did this.

Irun Cohen and his colleagues at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, and Harvard University reasoned that the mechanism for binding the virus to its target might also disable the T-cell's alarm call. If so, it could be used to inhibit the overactive immune response seen in autoimmune diseases.

The team focused on the FP fragment, part of the GP41 protein that HIV uses to dock with T-Cells, and used fluorescent markers to find out where on the T-cell surface it binds.

"What we discovered is that it doesn't just insert anywhere, but precisely at the part of the T-cell that is searching for attackers," says Cohen. The researchers also found that the FP fragment is able to silence the T-cell response to several different known antigens.

They then injected the FP fragment into rats suffering from a syndrome similar to rheumatoid arthritis in humans. Sure enough, the treatment reduced join swelling (The Journal of Clinical Investigation, vol 115, p 2149).

Cohen believes a treatment of this kind could be developed for humans. It wouldn't be a danger to patients because, without the rest of the virus, the FP fragment cannot infect cells or reproduce.

"What's different and interesting about this is that it's an experiment that has already been carried out in humans − by HIV in nature," says Edwin Gale, a specialist in type 1 diabetes at Bristol University in the UK. "It's a route that is worth investigating for the future." But it would be a long time before results in rats could be translated to a practical treatment for humans, he says.

Cohen agrees, but points out that there is plenty to be learned from the virus. "HIV is the world's most expert immunologist," he says. "All the wisdom of evolution is inside this virus. Let's see what it can teach us." GP41 is also a promising target for future HIV therapies that stop the virus binding to T-cells.

Readers who remember their chemistry lessons may recall mixing zinc with hydrochloric acid in a test tube and standing by, lighted splint in hand, ready to ignite the hydrogen that is given off. (Metallic zinc reacts with the chlorine in the acid, leaving hydrogen behind.) Zinc reacts similarly with water − or, rather, steam − in this case stripping the oxygen from H2O and once again, leaving the hydrogen. Industrialising that process, though, relies on finding a cheap way of turning the zinc oxide that results back into metallic zinc, so that the material can be recycled. And this, courtesy of the Weizmann Institute's Solar Tower laboratory, is what Dr Epstein has done.

The tower's 64 seven-metre-wide mirrors track the sun and focus its rays into a beam with a power of up to 300 kilowatts (see picture). In Dr Epstein's experiment, which he outlined at the recent International Solar Energy Society conference in Orlando, Florida, the beam was used to heat a mixture of zinc oxide and charcoal. The charcoal (which is pure carbon) reacted with the oxygen in the zinc oxide, releasing the zinc. This instantly vaporised and was then extracted and condensed into powder.

At the moment, the cheapest way of making hydrogen is a process called reformation, which also uses steam, but reacts it with natural gas, a fossil fuel. Dr Epstein thinks that if his process were scaled up, it would cost about the same as reformation. It would also have the advantage over reformation that no fossil fuel need be involved (the charcoal can be made from agricultural waste, such as manure), and so there is no net contribution of climate-changing carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. And the other way of using solar power to make hydrogen − generating electricity using solar cells and then using that electricity to split water into its component gases − is vastly less efficient than Dr Epsteins's method.

In the meantime, the powdered zinc produced can be employed in a different form of energy technology − zinc-air batteries. These are used to power certain sorts of electronic device. So, even if your car never runs on second-hand solar energy, one day your laptop might.

Between April 2004 and February 2005, 28 men with prostate cancer showed up at three Canadian hospitals for one-time injections of an experimental drug designed to eradicate their deadly tumors. Radiation had already failed them.

By December tumors in the earliest-treated patients had shrunk by as much as 84%. But the real test began in March, when doctors started studying tissue samples. If they find the tumors are gone or reduced to a manageable level, it may indicate that the drug is reliable over time, and researchers could be on their way to a radical advancement in localized prostate cancer treatment.

The drug, trademarked Tookad (a Hebrew word suggesting "the warmth of light"), is an innovative twist within the established cancer-drug class called photodynamic therapies. These drugs work their way through the bloodstream but become toxic only when exposed to light. When doctors shine a laser light onto either the skin or an internal tumor using catheter-inserted optical fibers, the drugs kill just the illuminated tissue and leave unexposed tissue relatively undamaged.

Tookad was designed to eradicate bulkier tumors, with fewer side effects than those caused by existing photodynamic drugs. Once illuminated by laser light, it clogs the tiny blood vessels feeding the tumors, starving the cancer of oxygen and nutrients. If it proves successful, Tookad will be a welcome addition to existing prostate treatments such as surgery, freezing and radiation, which can cause impotence and incontinence or kill healthy cells. So far Tookad has produced none of these side effects.

Photosensitizers have been used for a decade against esophageal, bladder, lung and skin cancers, but they leave the body so slowly that patients must avoid outdoor light for up to six weeks after treatment or risk skin burns. Tookad degrades more easily in the liver and exits the body within hours.

"This is one of the most promising treatments for recurrent prostate cancer after radiation I've ever seen," says John Trachtenberg, director of the Prostate Centre at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto and principal investigator for Tookad's worldwide trials, which are also under way in Britain, France and Israel. Results are due early next year. Successful results will also spotlight Steba NV, the family-owned Dutch company that has licensed Tookad and poured tens of millions of dollars into its development since 1996.

Tookad was developed over several years by biologist Yoram Salomon and plant photochemist Avigdor Scherz of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. Their breakthrough was in using a bacteria-derived photosensitive agent instead of the traditionally used heme, the red pigment found in hemoglobin. Heme can be activated by visible light at a wavelength of 630 nanometers, which can penetrate thin tumors but nothing much thicker. Tookad is derived from bacteriochlorophyll, the bacterial equivalent of the green plant pigment chlorophyll, which drives photosynthesis. It is activated by near-infrared light at a wavelength of 763 nanometers, long enough to penetrate deeper, up to 2 centimeters, into the tissue. Lighting up several fibers, doctors can treat even larger tumors.

"People tried chlorophyll before but failed since they used the native green pigment from plants," says Salomon, a professor with the institute's biological regulation department. "Avigdor and I modified bacteriochlorophyll to adapt it as a drug."

Tookad also fits into a burgeoning class of vessel-targeting cancer drugs that includes Genentech's successful Avastin. But, while Avastin requires patients to remain on the drug, Tookad can be administered once. In animal tests it has shown the ability to work against tumors that have become chemotherapy resistant; early work is under way on liver and lung tumors. Says Solomon Hamburg, a clinical professor of medicine at UCLA Medical Center: "This is not the kind of technology that will revolutionize outcomes. But it may change options. If I was 65 and had prostate cancer, and I had a choice between this drug and surgery or radiation, I'd strongly consider using this drug first."

"The goal is the same: to block blood flow to the tumor," says Salomon. "But we blow up the bridges. They [Avastin developers] slowly narrow the streets until no one can go through. If you stop their drug, the vessels grow back."

In one way, medicine hasn't changed much over the millennia: Doctors still wait for patients to feel sick before beginning treatment of an illness. Genomics promises to change that. By analyzing an individual's genetic makeup, physicians will be able to intervene early − and more precisely. "Generic treatments for certain diseases will be a thing of the past," says Elias Zerhouni, director of the National Institutes of Health. A malady can look the same in two patients, but be caused by a different series of physiological missteps, he explains. "Treatments will be tailored to your particular genomic background."

"NANO" IS THE NEW "CYBER." Attach the prefix to any word and it sounds like the future. Nano-enthusiasts predict a boggling array of micromanufacturers (such as the above plasma chamber for growing nanotubes). An experiment at Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science last spring hinted at nanotech's most compelling use: medicine. Scientists created nano-size computers, says research team leader Ehud Shapiro, that "sense and diagnose molecular symptoms for two types of cancer and release a drug molecule upon diagnosis." The experiment took place in a test tube, but the goal is to send the nanocomputers coursing through the blood to hunt down harmful cells.

Will It Happen? Yes: Stem Cell Cures
While embryonic stem cell research is controversial, little stands in the way of treatments based on the pluripotential stem cells found in bone marrow. One day, they'll help regenerate not only bone and cartilage, but also damaged heart muscle.

Not So Fast: Human Cloning
Dolly the cloned sheep made headlines at birth − and again when, riddled with disease, she was euthanized at an early age. Fewer than 10 percent of cloned embryos survive, and most cloned animals die young, many of gross anatomical abnormalities or cancer. There have been claims of human cloning. Given the technique's record, let's hope they're not true.

DNA COMPUTERS
The smallest computers in the world aren't built, they're grown. A drop of water can hold a trillion strands of DNA, each carrying encoded data just like the rows of 0s and 1s in a silicon computer. A few years ago scientists actually solved a tough mathematical puzzle (dubbed the "traveling salesman" problem) using DNA. Researchers, including Weizmann's Shapiro, now say that DNA computing may find its destiny in medicine, as the basis for blood-borne computers.

1−EYE SCANS
Lasers will help analyze ocular tissue and fluids to detect chemical changes indicating illnesses such as diabetes. The technique, part of routine checkups, will reveal problems months earlier than blood tests once did.

2−SAFE TREATMENTS
Diagnosis of, say, skin cancer will flow from microbiopsies and analysis of a lesion's genetic material. Options may then include designer viruses and nanoparticles that won't harm healthy cells.

3−CARDIAC INTERVENTION
Instead of relying on broad-stroke heart drugs, doctors will target the precise metabolic pathways−which vary among patients−that can lead to blood vessel inflammation and high cholesterol.

4−REBORN JOINTS
Plastic and steel hip and knee replacements will be supplanted by autologous (self-to-self) tissue transplants.

LONDON − Eggheads from the world-renowned scientific center the Weizmann Institute in Israel, conducting research into the brain activity using excerpts from “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” as stimulus, have made some startling discoveries.

Using 30 minutes from Sergio Leone’s classic Western and state-of-the-art MRI scanning equipment, the Weizmann research team − led by professor of neurobiology Rafael Malach − have found a striking similarity between brain activity patterns in all viewers, no matter what age or gender they are.

Malach presented his research at a layman’s lecture last week in the auspicious surroundings of the Royal Institution in London. He claimed there are several portions of Leone’s movie for which everyone tested recorded the same brain response.

For instance, when Clint Eastwood is loading his six-shooter, the area of the brain that deals with touch is invariably stimulated.

Malach tested 15 people, male and female, ages 22 to 52. He says his research throws up several findings, but perhaps the most intriguing is that, while many people think they interpret movies in their own individual ways, his research indicates that the brain is “almost mechanical” in dealing with the imagery of film.

"The bit of the brain that is activated when you touch something is activated during watching a movie when the people on screen touch something,” Malach told a packed audience. “But the tsunami of the common visual area is the ‘suspense and surprise’ signal part in the brain. Everyone tested was the same for this, responding to it from the same part of the brain.”

The professor says his results could mean that in the future, moviemakers could use his data in their craft. “From the readings from the brain, you could eventually get to the point where you could cut the perfect trailer from all the footage that activates the parts you want,” he suggests.

The Royal Institution was established in the late-18th century, and today offers a platform for scientific discoveries and pioneering research to be presented to the public. The audience for Malach’s demonstration was visibly wowed by his work.

Malach also revealed which areas of the subjects’ brains were active during love scenes or gunfights. “In the long run, this type of research will certainly be used to help the entertainment industry,” he predicts.

But he warns that using such data from the brain raises moral and even privacy issues. “People tend to think that they are very different in their response to movies, but if it’s an engaging film, we all respond to it in the same way,” he says.

It’s enough to make you think.

Thanks to technology developed in Prof. Hadassa Degani's laboratory, that relief may be had without the invasive, painful procedures that have accompanied cancer diagnosis methods until now. Prof. Degani discussed her breakthrough diagnostic method in a talk at MIT sponsored by ACWIS New England.

Prof. Degani's MRI-based method may someday be an alternative to mammography, presently the most widely available tool for breast cancer diagnosis. "The truth is mammography is not accurate. If the breast tissue is dense, as is the case for younger women, then mammography can miss malignant tumors. It also can't always differentiate between malignant and benign tumors. Too often pieces of a tumor must be removed for further testing. In 65 to 80 percent of cases these biopsies are unnecessary, because the tumors are benign," Prof. Degani said.

Prof. Degani uses MRI as a non-invasive way to differentiate between benign and malignant tumors at very early stages, sometimes even when tumors are undetectable by other methods. Unlike mammography, which uses X-rays to take a snapshot from two to three angles, MRI gives a three dimensional image of the whole breast at high resolution. MRI also provides high contrast in soft tissues, thereby generating the clearest and most detailed images.

A doctor can then use a computer to manipulate the image and look at "slices" of breast tissue from any angle or direction to pinpoint a tumor. Besides providing physical information about size and location of a tumor, MRI can also give information about location of blood vessels, blood flow, and density of cells in tissue.

To test for breast cancer, a patient is injected with a liquid that circulates in the blood and shows up on a MRI image. For the most accurate measurements, MRI images are taken at three time points: one before injection and two after injection of the fluid. As the fluid flows into breast tissue, it will move differently through cancerous cells than through normal tissue. "If you find tissue with densely packed cells and a lot of leaky blood vessels, then it indicates cancer," Prof. Degani explained. A computer takes the information from the MRI readings and analyzes it and then color-codes the image for easier interpretation.

Prostate Cancer
In theory, this MRI technique should be applicable to many types of cancer and other diseases. She and her colleagues have already successfully extended the technology to diagnose prostate cancer. Until recently, the only way to confirm a suspicion for prostate cancer has been to do biopsies on tissues that are taken from up to eight different places. But merely by optimizing the time points when the three MRI images were taken, the researchers were able to identify malignant tumors and predict the type of treatment necessary.

"Literally, we are trying to improve early detection and diagnosis of malignancy and thereby help extend the life of patients around the world. Thanks to our many collaborations, we have images coming to our labs in Israel from clinical trials in such diverse areas as Chicago and Vienna. I hope someday this will be a widely used diagnostic tool," Prof. Degani concluded.

Update:
Prof. Degani's method, known as 3TP (Three Time Point), has received FDA clearance for use in the detection of breast and prostate cancer. The 3TP technology is being licensed worldwide by 3TP LLC of New York, a privately held company.

Researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science and Germany's Max-Planck Society have discovered exactly how each of five antibiotic drugs bind to the bacterial ribosome - the cell's protein factory - shutting off protein production. Proteins are the cell's primary component and the basis of all enzymatic reactions; blocking their production kills the bacterium.

The research team headed by Prof. Ada Yonath of the Weizmann Institute's Structural Biology Department and the Max-Planck Research Units for Ribosomal Structure in Hamburg and Berlin has uncovered the exact mode of action of these drugs. Yonath had earlier revealed the detailed structure of the two subunits forming the ribosome, the first ever accomplishment of its kind, in a study described by the prestigious journal Science as one of the most important scientific discoveries of the year 2000. Elucidating the structure of the ribosome - a notoriously unstable, giant nucleoprotein complex - was a goal that had eluded scientists for years.

Armed with their extensive understanding of ribosomal structure, Yonath, Dr. Anat Bashan, and Ph.D. student Raz Zarivach decided to examine precisely how different antibiotics bind to the ribosome and shut off its protein production. To do so they treated bacteria with one of five different antibiotics and then created crystals that captured the individual complexes formed between each drug and the bacterial ribosome.

To examine these microscopic structures the scientists bombarded the crystals with high-intensity X-ray beams, analyzed how the rays diffracted, and then worked backward to decipher the crystal's exact structure - a technology known as X-ray crystallography. Using this method the researchers were able, for the first time, to view how the antibiotic drugs bind to a specific site of action on the ribosome, shutting off its machinery. These findings were recently reported in Nature.

A better understanding of the mode of action of antibiotic drugs may improve the treatment strategies of existing drugs and lead to the design of antibiotics that target bacterial agents at the ribosomal level.

The Max-Planck scientists collaborating in this study are Francois Franceschi, Joerg Harms, Ante Tocilj, Renate Albrecht, and Frank Schluenzen.