News Releases
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Coronavirus
Self-Monitoring Your Sense of Smell May Help Detect Coronavirus
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—April 2, 2020—Along with fever, cough, and shortness of breath, many COVID-19 patients report a temporary loss of sense of smell. It appears that olfactory loss is significantly greater in coronavirus patients compared to the loss often experienced during a cold and, less commonly, in influenza (non-COVID-19) patients.
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Coronavirus
Coronavirus by the Numbers
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—March 31, 2020—Numerical data sometimes reveal facts that are otherwise concealed within an onslaught of information from an overwhelming number of sources.
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Coronavirus
Intermittent Lockdown
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—March 31, 2020—Think of dieting. You can fast for two months and lose weight, but you will probably die. Even if you survive, you will quickly gain weight again. Similarly, a two-month lockdown will suppress the coronavirus, but it will kill the economy. Lockdown will push hundreds of millions of people globally into unemployment and poverty.
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Coronavirus
Two Steps Ahead of the Coronavirus
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—March 22, 2020—A method of predicting the coronavirus spread – pioneered and developed by Weizmann Institute scientists – may enable authorities to focus efforts on areas where an outbreak is anticipated and relieve measures taken in others. Several countries, including the United States, are adopting the new method
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Coronavirus
The Weizmann Institute of Science is Exploring Ways to Assist With Coronavirus Testing
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—March 17, 2020—In light of the severe constraints in performing a sufficient amount of coronavirus tests in Israel, the Weizmann Institute of Science has decided to contribute significantly to the national mission and use its advanced laboratories to perform coronavirus tests. In parallel, Weizmann Institute scientists are developing an advanced and very efficient testing approach that has a significantly reduced risk.
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Fighting Cancer
Predicting Immunotherapy Success
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—February 18, 2020—One of the frustrations with anti-cancer therapy is that no one drug fits all: Most work well in some people but have little effect in other patients with the same type of cancer. This is as true of the newer immunotherapy treatments as it is of older types of chemotherapy. Weizmann Institute of Science researchers have now identified new markers that can help predict which patients have a better chance for a positive response to immunotherapy treatments. Their findings were reported in Nature Communications.
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Culture & Community
New Leadership at American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science
NEW YORK, NY—January 22, 2020—The American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science has announced that David Teplow of Boston and Dr. Gladys Monroy of the Bay Area were elected National Chair and President, respectively, by the Board of Directors at its annual meeting. Mr. Teplow succeeds outgoing National Chair Ellen Merlo of New York, who has held the position since 2013. Dr. Monroy takes the helm from Mr. Teplow, who served as President since 2017.
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Improving Health & Medicine
New Algorithm Predicts Gestational Diabetes
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—January 13, 2020—A new computer algorithm enables prediction, in the early stages of pregnancy or even before pregnancy has occurred, of which women are at a high risk of gestational diabetes. Conducted by researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science, the study was reported in Nature Medicine. The scientists analyzed data on nearly 600,000 pregnancies available from Israel’s largest health organization, Clalit Health Services. It may be possible, based on these predictions, to prevent gestational diabetes using nutritional and lifestyle changes.
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Improving Health & Medicine
Decoy Molecule Neutralizes a Range of Viruses
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—January 7, 2020—A host of disease-causing viruses called arenaviruses lurk in animal populations in various parts of the world, sometimes crossing over into humans. When they do cross over, they can be lethal, and only very few treatments exist. Researchers led by scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science have now devised a clever decoy for these viruses that may keep them from spreading in the body.
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Advancing Technology
For the First Time: Electrons are Imaged Flowing Like Water
We often speak of electrons “flowing” through materials, but in fact, they do not normally move like a liquid. However, such “hydrodynamic” electron flow had long been predicted – and now, Weizmann Institute of Science physicists have managed, with the help of a unique technique, to image electrons flowing similarly to how water moves through a pipe. This is the first time such “liquid electron flow” has been visualized, and it has vital implications for future electronic devices.
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Culture & Community
The 11th President of the Weizmann Institute of Science and Four New Vice Presidents Take Office
The 11th president of the Weizmann Institute of Science, Prof. Alon Chen, took office on December 1, joined by four new vice presidents. “The Weizmann Institute is a world-leading research institution that generates transformative knowledge and educates the scientists of tomorrow,” said Prof. Chen in his recent speech before the International Board at its annual meeting. “Our alumni embark on careers in high-tech and biotech and in academia, providing the foundations of Israel’s booming economy, just as Chaim Weizmann envisioned. As we reach the milestone of 70 years since the establishment of the Weizmann Institute, I believe it’s safe to say that we have indeed lived up to Chaim Weizmann’s expectations. Perhaps we have even exceeded them.” The full text of Prof. Alon’s speech can be found here. =
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Protecting Our Planet
The Greenest Diet: Bacteria Switch to Eating Carbon Dioxide
Bacteria in the lab of Prof. Ron Milo of the Weizmann Institute of Science have not just sworn off sugar – they have stopped eating all of their normal solid food, existing instead on carbon dioxide (CO2) from their environment. That is, they were able to build all of their biomass from air. This feat, which involved nearly a decade of rational design, genetic engineering, and a sped-up version of evolution in the lab, was reported in Cell. The findings point to means of developing, in the future, carbon-neutral fuels.
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Improving Health & Medicine
An Exception to the Rule: An Intact Sense of Smell Without a Crucial Olfactory Brain Structure
Is a pair of brain structures called the olfactory bulbs, which are said to encode our sense of smell, necessary? That is, are they essential to the existence of this sense? Weizmann Institute of Science researchers recently showed that some humans can smell just fine, thank you, without said bulbs. Their finding – that around 0.6% of women, and more specifically, up to 4% of left-handed women, have completely intact senses of smell despite having no olfactory bulbs in their brains – calls into question the accepted notion that this structure is absolutely necessary for the act of smelling. The findings of this research, which were published in Neuron, could shake up certain conventional theories that describe the workings of our sense of smell.
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Improving Health & Medicine
For the First Time: A Method for Measuring Animal Personality
We might refer to someone’s personality as “mousy,” but in truth, mice have a range of personalities nearly as great as our own. Prof. Alon Chen and members of two groups he heads – one in the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Department of Neurobiology and one in the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, Germany – decided to explore personality specifically in mice. This would enable the scientists to develop a set of objective measurements for this highly slippery concept. A quantitative understanding of the traits that make each animal an individual might help answer some of the open questions in science concerning the connections between genes and behavior. The findings of this research were published in Nature Neuroscience.
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Improving Health & Medicine
Converging Solutions: Artificial Networks Shed Light on Human Face Recognition
Our brains are so primed to recognize faces – or to tell people apart – that we rarely even stop to think about it, but what happens in the brain when it engages in such recognition is still far from understood. In a new study published in Nature Communications, researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science have shed new light on this issue. They found a striking similarity between the way in which faces are encoded in the brain and successfully performing artificial intelligence (AI) systems known as deep neural networks.
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Improving Health & Medicine
Ebola Antibodies at Work
The glycoprotein spike complex of the Ebola virus bound by a neutralizing antibody isolated from a vaccinated individual. Surface representations in grey and pink show the two distinct submits that make the trimeric Ebola spike complex. The heavy and light chains of the neutralizing antibody are shown as blue and green ribbons, respectively. The antibody neutralizes this complex by stapling two adjacent subunits and preventing conformational changes needed by the virus to enter the host cell
