About Us
Founded in 1944, the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science develops philanthropic support for the Weizmann Institute in Israel, and advances its mission of science for the benefit of humanity.
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—March 17, 2021—Cancer immunotherapy may get a boost from an unexpected direction: bacteria residing within tumor cells. In a new study published in Nature, researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science and their collaborators have discovered that the immune system “sees” these bacteria and shown that they can be harnessed to provoke an immune reaction against the tumor. The study may also help clarify the connection between immunotherapy and the gut microbiome, explaining the findings of previous research showing that the microbiome affects the success of immunotherapy.
March 17, 2021
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—February 23, 2021—Multiple myeloma patients live much longer today than in the past, thanks to new targeted anti-myeloma drugs, but ultimately most people develop resistance to the medications, and in some the disease is resistant to therapy from the start. Weizmann Institute of Science researchers, in collaboration with physicians from Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center (TASMC), have made use of extremely sensitive genomic technology to reveal genetic pathways that characterize some of the more resistant cases of multiple myeloma. Their study, reported in Nature Medicine, may lead to a more informed, personalized treatment for these patients, and paves the way for using this new technology to discover disease targets in other cancers.
February 23, 2021
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—December 16, 2020—Cancers like melanoma are hard to treat, not least because they have a varied bag of tricks for defeating or evading treatments. Now, a combined research effort by the Weizmann Institute of Science...
December 16, 2020
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—July 16, 2020—Choosing the right drug for each cancer patient is key to successful treatment, but physicians currently have few reliable pointers to guide them in designing treatment protocols. Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have now developed a new method...
July 16, 2020
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—June 2, 2020—Cancer cells are comfy havens for bacteria. That conclusion arises from a rigorous study of over 1,000 tumor samples of different human cancers.
June 02, 2020
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.
February 18, 2020
Ewing sarcoma is a bone cancer that appears mainly in teenagers. Caused by a single defective gene, once it spreads to distant organs it is hard to treat. Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science have now discovered molecular interactions underlying Ewing sarcomas and proposed a potential treatment that has shown promise in a study in mice. These findings were published in Cell Reports.
October 02, 2019
Diversity – at least among cancer cells – is not a good thing. Now, research from the Weizmann Institute of Science shows that in melanoma, tumors with cells that have differentiated into more diverse subtypes are less likely to be affected by the immune system, thus reducing the chance that immunotherapy will be effective. The findings of this research, which were published in Cell, may provide better tools for designing personalized protocols for cancer patients, as well as pointing toward new avenues of research into anti-cancer vaccines.
September 12, 2019
Steba Biotech, a privately owned company, has, in collaboration with scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science, conducted extensive research and development on the prostate cancer treatment TOOKAD® – and now has received marketing authorization to make it available in 31 European countries. Following this regulatory approval, the first patients are currently being treated in top Israeli, German, English, and Italian medical centers.
April 29, 2019
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