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.
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.
December 10, 2019
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. =
December 01, 2019
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
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.
November 06, 2019
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.
November 04, 2019
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.
October 30, 2019
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
October 07, 2019
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
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