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.
Jun 01, 2020...
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the public last week to “return to normalcy, get a cup of coffee, a glass of beer… have fun” – and that is what most Israelis did.
But that return to normalcy appears to have runneth over, and the cup is apparently no longer half full.
As Israelis declined to comply with social-distancing directives, children returned to school, restaurants opened, and the number of people screened for the novel coronavirus dropped, the country quickly started to see a surge in active cases of SARS-CoV-2.
Jun 02, 2020... In this special update from his home in New York City, CEO Dave Doneson discusses the Weizmann Institute’s remarkable coronavirus response. Dave shares how the Institute has rapidly shifted its focus to address the pandemic, transforming into one of the world’s leading hubs of COVID-19 research. Weizmann scientists are fighting this disease on a variety of fronts, offering hope and optimism for us all.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
Aug 13, 2020... Hosted by the Embassy of Israel to the United States, this engaging virtual dialogue features Weizmann Institute President Prof. Alon Chen in conversation with Tammy Ben Haim, Minister of Public Diplomacy. Prof. Chen and Minister Ben Haim discuss a wide array of topics, including the Weizmann Institute's rapid response to the coronavirus. Prof. Chen explains how Weizmann's collaborative, multidisciplinary approach and focus on fundamental, curiosity-driven research enabled its scientists to quickly mobilize to fight COVID-19.
Sep 01, 2020...
Israeli and German researchers have successfully tested a new treatment for heart repair in pigs, the Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS) in Israel said on Tuesday.
In a study, published in the journal Circulation, WIS researchers, in collaboration with the Technical University of Munich, found that a human protein called Agrin could limit scarring in the heart muscle.
This means that Agrin might serve as an effective therapy after heart attacks, promoting heart repair and helping to prevent chronic heart failure, it said.
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