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Improving Health & Medicine
Getting Rid of Old Cells
Science Tips
Dr. Valery Krizhanovsky of the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Department of Molecular Cell Biology is revealing just how senescent cells are tied to disorders of aging and why they refuse to go away. His work is not only opening new windows onto the aging process, but is pointing to new directions in treatments for many of these disorders and diseases.
May 18, 2017
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Protecting Our Planet
Water, Water Everywhere: Prof. Brian Berkowitz on Protecting a Precious Resource
May 17, 2017
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Fighting Cancer
National Cancer Research Month: What is Weizmann Doing?
Did you know that May is National Cancer Research Month? As the American Association of Cancer Research states, this observance “recognizes the importance of cancer research”: after all, without basic research and the skilled scientists pursuing it, we would never have means of prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.
Cancer research has been a major focus of the Weizmann Institute of Science since its early days. Our scientists were among the first in the world to demonstrate that cancer develops in a multistage process; since then, they have made major advances in cancer diagnosis and treatment. Today they are deeply invested in the development of personalized cancer therapies.May 2017
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Bright Lights and Superstars: The Gruber Award for Scientific Excellence
On March 21, the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Dr. Ulyana Shimanovich received the 11th Annual Gruber Award for Scientific Excellence. Established by philanthropist Patricia Gruber and her late husband Peter Gruber through their Gruber Foundation, the prestigious award provides valuable affirmation and support for talented young scientists just beginning their careers.
Patricia’s forward-looking approach to improving the human condition is both principled and pragmatic: she funds the fellowships, scholarships, awards, and other initiatives that actually help people advance.May 12, 2017
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Improving Health & Medicine
Researchers Identify 6,500 Genes That Are Expressed Differently in Men and Women
Men and women differ in obvious and less obvious ways – for example, in the prevalence of certain diseases or reactions to drugs. How are these connected to one’s sex? Weizmann Institute of Science researchers recently uncovered thousands of human genes that are expressed – copied out to make proteins – differently in the two sexes. Their findings showed that harmful mutations in these particular genes tend to accumulate in the population in relatively high frequencies, and the study explains why. The detailed map of these genes, reported in BMC Biology, provides evidence that males and females undergo a sort of separate, but interconnected evolution.
May 03, 2017
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Enriching Education
Bessie Lawrence Alum Joshua Meier: A Young Scientist’s Story
Now an undergraduate at Harvard, Joshua Meier is making his mark in the lab and as a startup entrepreneur. Here, he recalls his formative summer at the Weizmann Institute.
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Improving Health & Medicine
New Worlds: Veggies Also Have Cholesterol
The Jerusalem Post
Vegetables: cucumbers and tomatoes. (photo credit:AMY SPIRO)
Many people eat green vegetables to lower their cholesterol levels, but contrary to common belief, most plants are not cholesterol-free. As reported recently in Nature Plants, researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science have now deciphered the biochemical reactions responsible for the plants’ cholesterol production. These findings may make it possible to engineer plant species so as to obtain biochemical compounds that are derived from cholesterol.April 30, 2017
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Enriching Education
Ensuring Our Future with Math and Science
The Jerusalem Post
“As a country we don’t fully realize how dangerous this threat is,” says Dr. Ariel Heimann, former director-general of the Davidson Institute of Science Education (the educational arm of the Weizmann Institute), “Everyone keeps talking about the Iranian threat, but it’s not so certain a bomb will ever reach us. What is certain, however, is that without Israeli science, we have no Israeli future.”
April 27, 2017
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Improving Health & Medicine
Your Sense of Smell is Actually Pretty Amazing
Popular Science
Our noses are a much more powerful tool than most of us realize—more sensitive, in many cases, than the most expensive piece of laboratory equipment. Case in point: If you had happened to cross the University of California at Berkeley campus in the early 2000s, you might have noticed an undergraduate—blindfolded, earplugged, and wearing coveralls, knee pads, and heavy gloves—crawling across the lawn with nose to ground, zigzagging slightly back and forth. Was he rolling a peanut across the campus with his nose as punishment for some arbitrary offense during a fraternity initiation? Was he groveling before more senior fraternity brothers? No. He was following a scent trail laid down by a chocolate-soaked string—and doing it almost perfectly.
April 27, 2017