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.
Extraterrestrial scientists landing in a football stadium would be struck by the sight of the crowd suddenly standing up and shouting in unison. In a similar manner, since the 1990s, researchers have observed a special pattern of neuronal activity in rodents: tens of thousands of nerve cells firing in unison in a part of the brain called the hippocampus. But, like alien scientists, the researchers have not been able to understand the “language” of the rodents’ minds when these mysterious synchronous bursts occurred. Recently, however, Weizmann Institute of Science researchers succeeded in recording these rapid bursts of activity – called “hippocampal ripples” – in the human brain, and were able to demonstrate their importance as a neuronal mechanism underlying the engraving of new memories and their subsequent recall. These findings appeared in Science.
August 15, 2019
Weighing in at just about 160 kg (around 353 lbs), a new type of scientific satellite is planned to be built in Israel over the next four years, with a projected launch date of 2023. The satellite, known as ULTRASAT, will carry a telescope designed to observe the universe as it has never been seen before. The satellite will operate in a range of light that is normally invisible to us – ultraviolet, or UV – and have a very large field of view.
August 12, 2019
Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science have shown in mice that intestinal microbes, collectively termed the gut microbiome, may affect the course of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. As reported in Nature, progression of an ALS-like disease was slowed after the mice received certain strains of gut microbes or substances known to be secreted by these microbes. Preliminary results suggest that the findings on the regulatory function of the microbiome may be applicable to human patients with ALS.
July 22, 2019
First impressions are important – they can set the stage for the entire course of a relationship. The same is true for the impressions the cells of our immune system form when they first meet a new bacterium. Using this insight, Weizmann Institute of Science researchers have developed an algorithm that may predict the onset of diseases such as tuberculosis. The findings of this research were published in Nature Communications.
July 22, 2019
“Size is not everything,” proclaims a Nature press release today. “Some smaller institutes are punching above their weight.” This statement arises from a new ranking conducted within the framework of the Nature Index 2019 – a normalized ranking that adds a new perspective to the relative contributions of each institute, and has placed the Weizmann Institute of Science in the top three, globally.
June 19, 2019
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—June 4, 2019— The Weizmann Institute of Science has been ranked among the top 25 research institutes/universities in the world in two main categories by U-Multirank, 2019. This organization named the Institute a Global Top 25 performer in two areas: Top-Cited Publications and Patents Awarded.
This ranking, an initiative of the European Commission since 2014, uses all the information available about hundreds of institutes worldwide and analyses it according to numerous variables to show which leads in five main categories. Each category is assessed independently, according to parameters unique to that category, and they are weighted so as to add a qualitative – rather than just quantitative – dimension to the ranking. The ranking is intended to promote transparency and to aid students in applying to universities for studies and research.
June 04, 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
The project, led by Prof. Eran Segal and his team in the Department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics and Department of Molecular Cell Biology, aims to use state-of-the-art artificial intelligence technologies to generate personalized predictions for disease risk factors. The 10K project is a longitudinal study designed to collect lifestyle and clinical data from 10,000 individuals who will be recruited from the Israeli population, and is suitable for Hebrew speakers only.
April 08, 2019
Our gut microbiome – the complement of bacteria we carry around in our intestines – has been linked to everything from obesity and diabetes to heart disease and even neurological disorders and cancer. In recent years, researchers have been sorting through the multiple bacterial species that populate the microbiome, asking which of them can be implicated in specific disorders. But a paper recently published in Nature addressed a new question: “What if the same microbe is different in different people?”
March 27, 2019
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