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.
Jun 02, 2020... REHOVOT, ISRAEL—June 2, 2020—Cancer cells are comfy havens for bacteria. That conclusion arises from a rigorous study of over 1,000 tumor samples of different human cancers. The study, headed by researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science, found bacteria living inside the cells of all the cancer types – from brain to bone to breast cancer – and even identified unique populations of bacteria residing in each type of cancer. The research suggests that understanding the relationship between a cancer cell and its “mini-microbiome” may help predict the potential effectiveness of certain treatments or may point, in the future, to ways of manipulating those bacteria to enhance the actions of anticancer treatments. The findings of this study were published in Science and featured on the cover.
May 17, 2020... Dr. Nir London discusses the “COVID Moonshot” project in this videoconference. The global initiative, which currently includes nine partners, aims to develop a “cheap and safe” antiviral treatment for COVID on a much faster timeline than traditional drug discovery.
May 21, 2020... In this video from a session at the United Nations’ 2020 Science, Technology, and Innovation (STI) conference, Prof. Ada Yonath speaks about COVID: its makeup, how it compares with other viruses, possible avenues of treatment, and challenges.
Jun 10, 2020... Prof. Eran Segal provides an update on his symptom-tracking questionnaire and how it can help predict the second wave of COVID-19. As he explains, testing is insufficient...
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/feature-stories/using-our-senses-to-fight-coronavirus/
Jun 10, 2020...
Just as COVID-19 is still advancing, so is the research of Weizmann Institute scientists as they develop ways to identify, predict, treat, and prevent the illness. One particularly innovative researcher is Prof. Noam Sobel.
A neurobiologist who is a world leader in olfaction research, Prof. Sobel works in the Weizmann tradition of following his curiosity as he harnesses the sense of smell to fight COVID. His previous studies have shown that our olfactory system has powers that many of us would never have imagined; he has used the sense of smell – our most ancient sense – to quantify the smell of fear; shed light on social miscues in autism and diagnose the condition; help locked-in, vegetative patients communicate; reveal subconscious reactions to the opposite sex; and much more.
May 28, 2020...
The first comprehensive survey of the microorganisms that live inside tumours has found that bacteria reside in those from many different cancer types, but it is unclear whether they contribute to tumour growth.
These bacteria make up part of a tumour’s microbiome – the complex community of bacteria, fungi and other microbes that live inside it.
Bacteria have previously been found in tumours in the bowel and other tissues in the body that are routinely exposed to microbes. However, less is known about their presence in tumours from other cancers, like those of the bone, brain and ovary.
Jun 25, 2020... The question as to how life began on Earth is one of the most fundamental to science, yet it remains one of humanity’s great mysteries. The first cells emerged relatively quickly after the Earth formed, meaning life wasted no time getting started once it had the right ingredients. Yet even the simplest cell is a complex bags of organelles, proteins, lipids and other molecular parts — and no one knows quite how such a complicated thing formed from random, inorganic processes.
May 26, 2020...
Israeli researchers say they have found that autoimmune diseases, such as diabetes or thyroid dysfunctions, are generated by immune cells that become overzealous in their protective mission and end up causing harm — and they created a mathematical model that demonstrates this.
In a study published in Immunity, scientists at Rehovot’s Weizmann Institute of Science, decided to find out why some organs are susceptible to autoimmune diseases while others are not. For example, the thyroid gland is often attacked by the autoimmune disease thyroiditis — an inflammation of the thyroid gland that can cause fatigue, weight gain, confusion and depression — while other organs, like the parathyroid gland, in charge of regulating the amount of calcium in the blood and bones, are almost never hit by autoimmune diseases.
Jul 16, 2020... REHOVOT, ISRAEL—July 16, 2020—Choosing the right drug for each cancer patient is key to successful treatment, but physicians currently have few reliable pointers to guide them in designing treatment protocols. Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have now developed a new method for selecting the best drug therapy for a given tumor, based on assigning scores to the cells’ internal messaging activities. In addition to helping physicians choose from a list of existing treatments, the method can help identify new molecular targets for the development of future drugs. In fact, the researchers have already used it to single out a gene that can be targeted for effectively treating breast cancers with a BRCA mutation. The study was recently published in Nature Communications.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/blog/the-gender-of-medication/
Jul 29, 2020...
You wouldn’t give a toddler the same dose of ibuprofen that you, an adult – let’s assume you’re a woman – take. Likewise, should your dose be the same as a man’s?
It’s so clear when you take a moment to consider it; in the article “Should medicine be gendered?” (which also cites Weizmann Institute research), the BBC’s Science Focus nutshells it for us: “Men and women have completely different biologies, and yet doctors prescribe the same drugs and doses to everyone, regardless of sex.”