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.
Mar 20, 2020...
Dear friends and members of the Weizmann Institute of Science community,
The coronavirus outbreak is a global challenge that forces us all to significantly and rapidly adjust our way of life and change our work routines.
Just a few months ago we might have imagined such an event playing out only in books or movies. But epidemiologists, immunologists, and public health officials have long anticipated the possibility of a pandemic. The theoretical policies developed during these more peaceful days are now being implemented worldwide to address the current crisis.
Jan 21, 2020...
A new computer algorithm developed by researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot can predict which women are at a high risk of gestational diabetes in the early stages of pregnancy or even before it has occurred, the institute said in a press release Monday afternoon.
The study analyzed data on nearly 600,000 pregnancies available from Israel's largest health insurance provider, Clalit Health Services, the Weizmann Institute of Science said. According to the institute, the algorithm may help prevent gestational diabetes using nutritional and lifestyle changes.
Oct 02, 2019...
The lungs of a mouse with untreated Ewing sarcoma (left) contain numerous tumor cells (shown by luminescent colors) that have spread from the bone; the lungs of a mouse treated with a drug reducing the synthesis of glucocorticoids are almost free from the sarcoma (right)
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—October 2, 2019—Ewing sarcoma is a bone cancer that appears mainly in teenagers. Caused by a single defective gene, once it spreads to distant organs it is hard to treat. Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science have now discovered molecular interactions underlying Ewing sarcomas and proposed a potential treatment that has shown promise in a study in mice. These findings were published in Cell Reports.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/ebola-antibodies-at-work/
Oct 07, 2019... In the recurring, deadly Ebola outbreaks in parts of Africa, today’s health workers now have at least some tools to fight the disease: vaccines. Vaccines against Ebola have been administered to over 100,000 people to date, but they are barely out of the experimental stage. It is not known how well these vaccines will provide long-term protection across a broad population. Furthermore, on the basic scientific level, the effects of vaccination on the immune system and how the immune response of vaccinated individuals compares with that of individuals who have survived Ebola infections was not known. A Weizmann Institute of Science lab recently joined forces with a research team in Cologne, Germany, to uncover the details of the molecular response that occurs in the immune system after vaccination against Ebola. Their findings may help health organizations devise better strategies for containing and preventing the disease.
Apr 01, 2020...
JERUSALEM — Teams of epidemiologists and computer scientists on three continents have started mass population surveys to try to get ahead of the coronavirus and ensure that scarce diagnostic tests, and even scarcer ventilators, are sent where they can do the most good.
More than two million people in Britain and 150,000 Israelis have already completed simple questionnaires, and many are updating their answers daily. Analysts of the data — including symptoms of Covid-19 and test results, as well as risk factors and demographics — say they have been able to identify incipient outbreaks days ahead of the authorities.
Mar 25, 2020... Israel is suffering a shortage of coronavirus tests, and the Weizmann Institute – working with the Ministry of Health – has transformed scientific facilities into medical facilities in order to conduct more testing. Institute leadership expects that the labs should be able to run 4,000 tests per day.
Mar 23, 2020... Dr. Nir London of the Weizmann Institute’s Department of Organic Chemistry explains his lab’s approach to fighting the coronavirus: creating a novel antiviral treatment. After identifying candidates for an antibody, he and his team are designing second-generation compounds that will go to colleagues in Germany and the U.K. for testing against the virus. Dr. London emphasizes the fact that this is open science: research that is freely available to all, for the benefit of everyone.
Jan 21, 2020...
Non-communicable diseases including heart disease, cancer and lung disease are now the most common causes of death, accounting for 70 percent of deaths worldwide. These diseases are considered “non-communicable” because they are thought to be caused by a combination of genetic, lifestyle and environmental factors and can't be transmitted between people.
A new research paper in Science by a team of fellows in CIFAR's Humans and the Microbiome program throws this long-held belief into question by providing evidence that many diseases may be transmissible between people through microbes (including bacteria, fungi, and viruses) that live in and on our bodies.
Oct 07, 2019...
A group of Israeli and German scientists has joined forces to defeat Ebola, one of the deadliest contagious diseases of the 21st century.A Weizmann Institute of Science lab recently started to work with a research team in Cologne, Germany, to gain a better understanding of how the vaccination against the virus affects the immune system.
“These vaccines -- made by recombinant methods that attach an Ebola protein to a harmless virus -- are hard to produce, and thus there is not enough of them to vaccinate an entire population,” explained Ron Diskin of Weizmann’s Structural Biology Department.“In addition, the civil strife in some areas where Ebola is rampant today, the facts that it is often needed in villages that are hard to reach and that because of its scarcity, the vaccine tends to be given only to those most closely connected to individuals who are already sick,” he further stated.“Understanding exactly how the immune response is produced following vaccination will not only help refine the vaccine, itself. It can help us understand whether it will work against different strains of the virus or whether the dose given today is the best one,” the scientist added. The Ebola virus disease (EVD), formerly known as Ebola hemorrhagic fever, is transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads in the human population through human-to-human transmission.According to the World Health Organization, the Ebola fatality rate is around 50%, but it can vary from 25% to 90% in different outbreaks.
Oct 24, 2019...
JERUSALEM, Oct. 24 (Xinhua) – Israeli scientists revealed the mechanism of the sea cone snail’s venom, which may lead to new drugs for abnormal heart rate and high blood pressure, the Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS) reported Thursday.
The findings may also lead to the development of safe natural insecticides, because some components of this venom only kill insects, and not mammals.
The findings, published in the scientific journal PNAS, may explain some of the side effects of potassium-blocking drugs, such as heart arrythmia and hypertension drugs, and lead to the development of better ones.
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