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.
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.
November 27, 2019
Plants have control mechanisms that resemble those in human senses. According to a new Weizmann Institute of Science study, plants adjust their photosynthesis to rapid light changes using a sophisticated sensing system, much in the way that the human eye responds to variations in light intensity. This sensory-like regulation operates at low light intensities, when the photosynthesis machinery is most efficient but also most vulnerable to sudden light increases.
January 2019
Ten satellites, each around the size of a shoebox, are slated in a few years to enter orbit and begin filling in some gaping holes in our understanding of clouds and their role in climate. Inspired by medical CT (computed tomography), which observes and maps patients’ interiors, the designers are creating a system that will reveal detailed images of clouds’ external and internal 3D structures and properties. By probing small cloud fields that are generally missed by today’s remote-sensing technologies, the mission may resolve some major uncertainties that limit current atmospheric modelling and climate prediction.
December 17, 2018
About a third of the food produced for human consumption is estimated to be lost or wasted globally. But the biggest waste, which is not included in that estimate, may be through dietary choices that result in the squandering of environmental resources. In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science and their colleagues have now found a novel way to define and quantify this second type of wastage. The scientists have called it “opportunity food loss,” a term inspired by the “opportunity cost” concept in economics, which refers to the cost of choosing a particular alternative over better options.
March 26, 2018
Prof. Rotem Sorek of the Weizmann Institute of Science; Prof. Roi Holzman of the School of Zoology and the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, Tel Aviv University; and Dr. Moshe Kiflawi of Ben Gurion University have now produced a way to understand precisely which species of larvae are present in the water around reefs. Their study, which involved genetic “barcoding” of nearly all the fish species in the gulf between Eilat and Aqaba, not only showed which larvae were in the gulf, but how many of each were swimming around, at what time of year, and at what depths. This study was published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.
December 18, 2017
Color in the plant kingdom is not merely a joy to the eye. Colored pigments attract pollinating insects, they protect plants against disease, they confer health benefits, and are used in the food and drug industries. A new study conducted at the Weizmann Institute of Science, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, has now opened the way to numerous potential uses of betalains, the highly nutritious red-violet and yellow pigments known for their antioxidant properties and commonly used as food dyes.
August 2017
Israel is subjected to sand and dust storms from several directions: northeast from the Sahara, northwest from Saudi Arabia, and southwest from the desert regions of Syria. The airborne dust carried in these storms affects the health of people and ecosystems alike. New research at the Weizmann Institute of Science suggests that part of the effect might not be in the particles of dust but rather in bacteria that cling to them, traveling many kilometers in the air with the storms. Some of these bacteria might be pathogenic – harmful to us or the environment – and a few of them also carry genes for antibiotic resistance.
June 27, 2017
Looking back at the very earliest oceans, Dr. Itay Halevy found that they started off acidic and gradually became alkaline. His work sheds light on how levels of ocean acidity in the past were controlled by carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, an important process for understanding the effects of climate change, as today the oceans are again becoming acidic.
March 2017
The process of carbon fixation is crucial to life on earth – and yet it puts too much harmful carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. Prof. Ron Milo's lab has engineered carbon-fixing bacteria to create sugar – fuel – from CO2. The team hopes that, in the future, their insights could lead to ways of storing energy or growing crops with higher yields, better suited to the coming world.
June 23, 2016
©2020 American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science