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.
Mar 02, 2017...
Weizmann Institute of Science (photo credit:MICHAEL JACOBSON/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS)
Prof. Yosef Yarden from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot will be awarded the Israel Prize in Life Science Research, the Education Ministry announced this week.
“Prof. Yosef Yarden is among the most important cancer researchers in the world,” the prize committee, which is headed by Prof. Yosef Shiloh, wrote of its decision.
Sep 14, 2012... REHOVOT, ISRAEL—September 14, 2012—Cancer chemotherapy can be a life-saver, but it is fraught with severe side effects, among them an increased risk of infection. Until now, the major criterion for assessing this risk has been the blood cell count: if the number of white blood cells falls below a critical threshold, the risk of infection is thought to be high. A new model built by Weizmann Institute of Science mathematicians, in collaboration with physicians from the Meir Medical Center in Kfar Saba, Israel, and the Hoffmann-La Roche research center in Basel, Switzerland, suggests that for proper risk assessment, it is essential to evaluate not only the quantity of these blood cells, but also their quality, which varies from one person to another.
Jun 06, 2016...
Last month a new treatment was revealed - invented in Israel at the Weizmann Institute - which is making its way to the public. The company leading the commercialization of the technology is Steba Biotech, led by a Jewish father-son team from France who previously owned one of the largest private pharmaceutical companies in the country.
Raphael and Fabrice Harari sold a significant portion of their previous business ventures to fund their vision for Steba; they even rejected, they say, an investment based on a valuation of more than a billion dollars - because of their Zionism.
Aug 24, 2016...
Source: Dr Steven A Rosenberg, MD/PhD. Micrograph of a group of T cells attacking a tumour cell.
Robert Hershberg, chief scientific officer at New Jersey-based biotechnology company Celgene, recalls the first time he heard about engineered T cells. It was back in 2002 when he was working at a company called Corixa in Seattle, Washington. “There was a discussion about these strange molecules called T bodies and we all thought it was a little bit hare-brained and I remember thinking… it’s going to be a real longshot.”
Dec 22, 2003...
Anyone who has had a scare with cancer can relate to this line from the Woody Allen movie Deconstructing Harry: "The three most beautiful words in the English language aren't 'I love you,' but 'It is benign.'"
Thanks to technology developed in Prof. Hadassa Degani's laboratory, that relief may be had without the invasive, painful procedures that have accompanied cancer diagnosis methods until now. Prof. Degani discussed her breakthrough diagnostic method in a talk at MIT sponsored by ACWIS New England.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/feature-stories/seeing-cancer-saving-lives/
Mar 17, 2016...
About one in eight women in the U.S. will develop invasive breast cancer during her lifetime, according to the American Cancer Society. Fortunately, it is no longer the probable death sentence it once was, in large part because today’s well-designed screening tests help doctors find breast tumors at an earlier stage, thus increasing the chances for successful treatment.
“If you detect breast cancer very early, you make it a disease that is in more cases curable. And that’s really our aim,” says Prof. Hadassa Degani of the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Department of Biological Regulation. For more than 20 years, she has been developing less-invasive cancer diagnosis techniques that utilize existing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners.
Sep 07, 2016... Prostate and Ovarian Cancer: What Weizmann is Doing
Dec 04, 2018...
Early diagnosis of acute myelocytic leukemia (AML) paves the way for treatment. Image Credit: National Cancer Institute
A study of more than half a million blood samples has allowed scientists to pinpoint the risk factors for a rare type of leukemia, enabling them to predict if someone will develop the disease eight years before symptoms appear and opening the door to preventative treatments.
Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a rare cancer usually detected at an advanced stage. ‘It usually comes out of the blue,’ said Dr Liran Shlush of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. ‘Most patients survive just a few weeks or months after diagnosis.’
Aug 26, 2007...
The work of Israeli cancer researchers is enhanced by the efforts of the ICRF.
A team of researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, led by ICRF-supported scientist Professor Yosef Yarden, has identified a specific protein that enables breast cancer cells to metastasize and spread to other organs.
The team hopes that the discovery will facilitate the development of drugs that block or inhibit the production of this protein to prevent metastasis in breast and other cancers. Metastasis, when cancer cells break away from the original tumor and spread via the blood stream to other organs, is the leading cause of cancer death.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/tumors-might-grow-faster-at-night/
Oct 06, 2014... REHOVOT, ISRAEL—October 6, 2014—They emerge at night, while we sleep unaware, growing and spreading out as quickly as they can. And they are deadly. In a surprise finding that was recently published in Nature Communications, Weizmann Institute of Science researchers showed that nighttime is the right time for cancer to grow and spread in the body. Their findings suggest that administering certain treatments in time with the body’s day-night cycle could boost their efficiency.
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