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 future of humanity.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/feature-stories/artificial-sweeteners-hit-a-sour-note/
Sep 30, 2014...
Artificial sweeteners have long been promoted as "better" for us – diet sodas help us stay slim, sugar-free cookies provide a treat for diabetics. But breaking research from the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Dr. Eran Elinav and Prof. Eran Segal has dropped a bomb on such thinking: in fact, they say, artificial sweeteners may even be causing the very conditions they were presumed to prevent.
Dr. Elinav and Prof. Segal are scaling up their Personalized Nutrition Project, which aims to precisely measure how we as individuals process and metabolize food. While studying artificial sweeteners, they found that even though such products are not digested, they are detected by our trillions of gut bacteria. These bacteria, in turn, may trigger metabolic changes that have a number of negative health effects, such as increasing blood sugar.
Feb 15, 2016...
E. coli bacteria. The most common number cited for how much bacteria each person carries is almost certainly wrong. Credit David M. Phillips/Science Source
There are a lot of bacteria on us and in us – our microbiome, it is called. Calculating exactly how many microbes each of us carries is hard, and the most common number cited, both in popular and scientific literature, is almost certainly wrong.
Nov 18, 2013...
Nobelist Ada Yonath delivers the Efraim Racker Lecture in Biology and Medicine Nov. 14 on campus. Robert Barker/University Photography
One hundred may one day be the new 80, but it may be some time before living past 80 is a global standard for life expectancy, said Nobel laureate Ada Yonath, who delivered the 21st Efraim Racker Lecture in Biology and Medicine Nov. 14.
Yonath linked widespread use of antibiotics to increased human life expectancy. Her work on ribosomes has offered insight into helping researchers understand antibiotic resistance.
Dec 01, 2009... A bicycle accident and polar bears came together in one curious scientist’s mind, and became the catalyst for research that is changing the world.When Prof. Ada Yonath of the Weizmann Institute of Science was recovering from a concussion suffered while riding her bike, she read an article about hibernating polar bears, which led her to consider the physical processes that enable and support a dormant state. It occurred to her that in order for the bears to go in and out of hibernation, it was possible that ribosomes were packed in an orderly manner—an idea that went against then-current thinking. And she wondered, “Why do they do this?”
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/science-tips-february-2009/
Feb 03, 2009... Even when our eyes are closed, the visual centers in our brain are humming with activity. Weizmann Institute scientists and others have shown in the last few years that the magnitude of sense-related activity in a brain that’s disengaged from seeing, touching, etc., is quite similar to that of one exposed to a stimulus. New research at the Institute has now revealed details of that activity, explaining why, even though our sense centers are working, we don’t experience sights or sounds when there’s nothing coming in through our sensory organs.
Dec 15, 2011...
Baseball produces a welter of data, from which correlations can be drawn – for example between the number of hits and a player’s salary. Donald Miralle / Getty Images
The US humorist Evan Esar once called statistics the science of producing unreliable facts from reliable figures. An innovative technique now promises to make those facts a whole lot more dependable.
Brothers David Reshef of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Yakir Reshef, now at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, and their coworkers have devised a method to extract from complex sets of data relationships and trends that are invisible to other types of statistical analysis. They describe their approach in Science today.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/israeli-woman-is-europe-s-top-young-researcher/
Mar 28, 2012...
Courtesy Lam Velitz Studios
Multinational cosmetics firm L’Oreal and UNESCO have named a Weizmann Institute biologist working in the field of probiotics, commonly referred to as beneficial bacteria, “Europe’s top young researcher.” For her work in researching probiotics to treat disease, Dr. Naama Geva-Zatorsky will receive a two-year $40,000 postdoctoral scholarship.
During the past three years, young Israeli women have been able to apply for the program, which began 14 years ago and aims at promoting research among women starting out their scientific careers. There are only 15 annual fellowship winners around the world.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/how-bacteria-hinder-chemotherapy/
Sep 14, 2017...
Bacteria (green) inside human pancreatic cancer cells (AsPC-1 cells). The cells’ nuclei are stained blue while their cytoplasm is stained orange
To the list of reasons that chemotherapy sometimes does not work, we can now add one more: bacteria. In a study just published in Science, researchers describe their findings showing that certain bacteria can be found inside human pancreatic tumors. The findings further revealed that some of these bacteria contain an enzyme that inactivates a common drug used to treat various cancers, including pancreatic cancer. Working with mouse models of cancer, the scientists demonstrated how treatment with antibiotics on top of chemotherapy may be significantly superior to treatment with chemotherapy alone.
Nov 18, 2019...
The idea of ‘gut health’ barely existed a few years ago, but now, people in the UK spend around £750 million every year on probiotic products — ‘beneficial’ bacteria which is supposed to boost our health.
People take probiotics believing they increase levels of beneficial bacteria and will boost their immune system, digestion, mental health and more.
But last week, an expert warned that fermented foods such as sauerkraut — often consumed because of their probiotic effect — may trigger bloating, headaches and allergies.
Nov 24, 2016...
New research offers insight into why it’s so difficult for dieters to maintain their weight loss. (Getty Images)
For those who have lost the same 10, 20 or 50 pounds not once but many times over, new research may help explain why yo-yo dieters so often fail to maintain their hard-won weight loss.
The community of microorganisms that inhabit the gut are a key culprit, experiments in mice suggest. After being altered by obesity, this collection of bacteria, viruses and protozoa — collectively known as the gut microbiome — subverts any effort to keep lost weight off. Instead, it seems to encourage the body to regain lost weight by storing more calories as fat, and it does so in ways that exaggerate the body’s unhealthy metabolic response to weight gain.
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