We're looking forward to summer and basking in the sun, so it's a good thing that May is Melanoma/Skin Cancer Detection and Prevention Month! Awareness, protection, and early diagnosis are crucial; when melanoma does develop, it is hard to fight. That's why the Weizmann Institute of Science is shedding light on skin cancer from a number of fresh angles.
Six outstanding students from the Institute's Feinberg Graduate School traveled across the Atlantic for the second U.S. “Scientists of Tomorrow” tour. The students brought energy and enthusiasm as they discussed their work at breakfasts, luncheons, dinners, and “Science on Tap” events. While their research subjects varied from cancer to biological clocks to the human brain, they shared a passion for science – and a desire to spread the spirit of discovery to the general public.
Please take a moment to revisit the Weizmann Institute's noteworthy research from 2014, and stay tuned in 2015 for still more amazing breakthroughs. We're looking forward to blowing your mind, changing your life, saving the world – or just making you stop, think, and wonder.
The CDC estimates that 1 in 68 children has autism, and identifying its complex causes is difficult. Fortunately, Weizmann Institute researchers are approaching autism from a number of fresh directions – such as smell and light – in order to piece together its puzzle and develop new means of early diagnosis and better therapies.
Our rapidly changing climate makes it more imperative than ever to have reliable, affordable forms of energy. As head of the Institute's Alternative Energy Research Initiative, Prof. David Cahen is helping to make this happen – both through his own work and by issuing grants to Weizmann scientists pursuing alternative energy solutions.
Prof. Hadassa Degani has spent decades developing noninvasive methods of imaging cancer. Moving beyond her breakthrough 3TP, FDA approved for detecting breast and prostate cancer, she has patented a new technique, DTI, which identifies breast – and potentially pancreatic – cancer by tracking the movement of water in the body.
Weizmann Institute basic research is, yet again, behind the headlines: a new blood cancer therapy that uses one's own immune system to defeat the disease is stunning clinicians and giving patients hope. Trials in the U.S. have had amazing results, with critically ill leukemia patients now in remission. The breakthrough is based on decades of research by Weizmann's Prof. Zelig Eshhar, who is now working to adapt his method to other forms of cancer.
Lymphedema is a too-unknown condition involving severe swelling that affects about 10 million Americans, most of them cancer survivors. Learn what lymphedema is and about the research and organizations that are trying to help – and sign a petition at Change.org to establish World Lymphedema Day.
March 11, 2016
The American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science hosted the first Women for Science (W4S) virtual conference, linking over 100 attendees to the Weizmann Institute campus from seven video conferencing sites across the U.S. Live from Rehovot, Prof. Idit Shachar, Head of the Department of Immunology and incumbent of the Dr. Morton and Anne Kleiman Professorial Chair, discussed the role of immune cells in health and disease.
©2019 American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science
