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What is Weizmann Doing?

This special coronavirus section shares Weizmann Institute of Science research, expert opinion, education resources, and news. Our scientists are already conducting investigations that could improve testing and diagnosis techniques and provide new strategies for prevention and treatment. We are committed to advancing research to protect and preserve the health and well-being of everyone, everywhere.

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Coronavirus
Alon Chen: ‘We’re going to continue seeing people who develop trauma and depression and anxiety because of the pandemic’
El Pais
Like every Israeli, Alon Chen had to do three years of military service, and was posted with the paratroopers to the middle of the war in Lebanon. “I lost a friend. When you go and you treat the person that is injured and is dying, and you cannot help him, it leaves its mark,” he recalls. From then on, he knew he wanted to dedicate the rest of his life to understanding what happens to a brain that suffers a traumatic experience.

November 30, 2021
Coronavirus
Global Initiative to Rapidly Develop a Safe, Globally Accessible and Affordable COVID-19 Antiviral Pill
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—September 29, 2021—The world’s largest open-science drug discovery effort, COVID Moonshot, has recently received key funding of £8 million from biomedical funding charity, Wellcome, on behalf of the Covid-19 Therapeutics Accelerator. The global non-profit is dedicated to the discovery of globally affordable and easily-manufactured antiviral drugs against COVID-19 and future viral pandemics.

September 29, 2021
Coronavirus
Third COVID shot boosts immunity tenfold - Israeli study now peer-reviewed
The Jerusalem Post
Taking a third dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine boosts the immunity of recipients more than tenfold compared to those who received only two doses of the vaccine more than five months prior, according to a report published Wednesday night by Israeli researchers in the New England Journal of Medicine.A version of the study had been previously published and reported on, though not peer-reviewed, on the online research hub MedRxiv at the beginning of the month.

September 18, 2021
Coronavirus
Gut Microbiome May Help or Hinder Defenses Against SARS-CoV-2
The Scientist
When SARS-CoV-2 first began rampaging around the world, it was thought to primarily affect the respiratory system. It soon became clear that the virus had more far-reaching effects, including on the gastrointestinal system and its bacterial symbionts.
This came as no surprise to Siew Ng, a gastroenterologist in the Center for Gut Microbiota Research at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “We previously had found quite a lot of impaired gut microbiome in different conditions, including people with infectious disease,” says Ng. COVID-19 patients were no different. “In quite a substantial proportion of people, they also have gut manifestations, such as diarrhea, such as abdominal pain.”

August 31, 2021
Coronavirus
“Emotional COVID-19”: How the Global Pandemic Affected the Mental Well-Being of Israelis
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—August 9, 2021—During the six weeks between the end of the first Covid-19 outbreak in Israel and the beginning of the second one (late April to early June of 2020), researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science initiated a study that sought to assess and understand the mental toll of the pandemic on the country’s adult population. The study included more than 12,000 responses from nearly 5,000 respondents to digital questionnaires.

August 09, 2021
Coronavirus
How Much Does All the SARS-CoV-2 in the World Weigh?
Live Science
Prof. Ron Milo calculated the weight of coronavirus, finding, as Live Science reports, that it’s between that of an apple and a young toddler.

June 10, 2021
Coronavirus
The Triple Threat of Coronavirus
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—May 12, 2021—Severe symptoms of COVID-19, leading often to death, are thought to result from the patient’s own acute immune response rather than from damage inflicted directly by the virus. Intensive research efforts are therefore seeking to determine how the SARS-CoV-2 virus manages to mount an effective invasion while throwing the immune system off course. A new study, published in Nature, reveals a multipronged strategy that the virus employs to ensure its quick and efficient replication, while avoiding detection by the immune system. The study, conducted jointly by the research groups of Dr. Noam Stern-Ginossar at the Weizmann Institute of Science and Dr. Nir Paran and Dr. Tomer Israely of the Israel Institute for Biological, Chemical and Environmental Sciences, focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms at work during infection by SARS-CoV-2 at the cellular level.

May 12, 2021
Coronavirus
Why Does COVID Make People So Sick, So Quickly? Israeli Geneticist Has an Answer
The Times of Israel
COVID-19 is so dangerous because the virus uses a three-pronged attack mechanism to stop cells from quickly triggering the immune system, Israeli scientists have concluded.
They offer a portrait of how exactly the SARS-CoV-2 virus behaves once inside human cells — they say it’s the most detailed to date — in an article published on Wednesday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature.
After hundreds of hours in their labs monitoring the virus interacting with cells, they have concluded that the virus mounts a hostile takeover on the cell’s protein-making machinery, and stops it from making proteins needed to galvanize the immune system.

May 12, 2021
Coronavirus
What Can Covid-19 Teach Us About the Mysteries of Smell?
The New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine’s cover story about the sense of smell – loss of which can be a Covid symptom – cites Prof. Noam Sobel and his research.

January 28, 2021
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