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.
If we really want to know how our body’s cells work – or don’t work, in the case of disease – we might need to look beyond our genes and even beyond the proteins the genes are made of. We may need to start going through the cellular “trash.” The group of Dr. Yifat Merbl of the Weizmann Institute of Science developed a system to do just that, finding that “cellular dumpster-diving” contains information about the cell’s function that is not otherwise seen. The group applied their new approach to profiling the immune cells of patients with an autoimmune disorder, discovering clear evidence of a signature pattern that provides a new way of thinking about the underlying causes of the disease. Furthermore, in the future, this may lead to better diagnostic techniques.
October 22, 2018
With new immunotherapy treatments for melanoma, recovery rates have risen dramatically – in some cases to around 50%. But they could be much higher. A new study led by researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science showed, in lab dishes and animal studies, that a highly personalized approach could help the immune cells improve their ability to recognize the cancer and kill it. The results of this study were published in Cancer Discovery.
September 12, 2018
Every day, millions of people take probiotics – preparations containing live bacteria that are meant to fortify their immune systems, prevent disease, or repair the adverse effects of antibiotics. Yet the benefits of probiotics have not really been medically proven. It is not even clear if probiotic bacteria really colonize the digestive tract or, if they do, what effects the colonies have on humans and their microbiomes – the native bacteria in their guts. Now, in two back-to-back reports published in Cell, researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science show – in both mice and in humans – that a preparation of 11 strains of the most widely used probiotic families may sometimes be less than beneficial for the user and their microbiome.
September 06, 2018
The quantum computers of the future will be able to perform computations that cannot be done on today’s computers. These may likely include the ability to crack the encryption that is currently used for secure electronic transactions, as well as the means to efficiently solve unwieldy problems in which the number of possible solutions increases exponentially. Research in the quantum optics lab of Prof. Barak Dayan at the Weizmann Institute of Science may be bringing such computers one step closer by providing the “quantum gates” required for communication within and between such quantum computers.
September 04, 2018
When the body makes use of nitrogen, it generates from the leftovers a nitrogenous waste substance called urea in a chain of biochemical reactions that take place in the liver, which are known as the urea cycle. As a result of this cycle, urea is expelled into the bloodstream, and is later excreted from the body in the urine. In previous research, Dr. Ayelet Erez of Weizmann’s Department of Biological Regulation showed that one of the enzymes in the urea cycle has been inactivated within many cancerous tumors, thus increasing the availability of nitrogen for the synthesis of an organic substance called pyrimidine which, in turn, supports RNA and DNA synthesis and cancerous growth.
August 2018
Utrasound equipment has shrunk in both size and price in recent years – so much so that it is now standard in hospitals and clinics all over the world. But today’s ultrasound still requires a highly trained expert to acquire the image and interpret the results, and this has prevented its use in certain settings – for example, in urgent care. In a joint venture they call On-Sight, computer scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science and a cardiologist at the New York University School of Medicine have teamed up to develop an automated system that guides the operator in acquiring the images and then accurately interprets the results for physicians. This venture was recently awarded first place in the third Echovation Challenge of the American Society of Echocardiography.
August 2018
The three fresh Weizmann Institute of Science graduates – Drs. Yuval Gilad, Idan Alyagor, and Yoav Politi – named their company FREEZEM. As the name suggests, they are developing a way to cryogenically freeze the fly eggs so that they remain viable. The technology for freezing fly eggs, they say, is different from that used to freeze human ova or bacteria, and they are the first to offer this development.
August 2018
The Board of Directors of the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science has unanimously elected David Doneson to be the organization’s next CEO, effective September 4, 2018. Mr. Doneson will succeed Marshall S. Levin, who has served as CEO since 2008.
August 01, 2018
New-generation lung cancer drugs have been effective in a large number of patients, but within about a year, most tend to develop resistance to the therapy. Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science, in collaboration with physicians, have conducted a study in mice in which they used existing drugs in a new combination to help crush potential treatment resistance. Their findings were published recently in the journal Clinical Cancer Research.
July 2018
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