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.
Nov 05, 2019... Recognizing faces is as natural and habitual as can be for human beings. Even with their undeveloped vision, babies can recognize their mother’s face within days, while adults typically know some 5,000 faces. But what actually happens inside our brains during the process of recognizing a face? How are different facial features encoded in our brains? And can artificial intelligence learn to recognize faces the way humans do?
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/birth-of-an-enzyme/
Mar 24, 2008...
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—March 24, 2008—Mankind triumphed in a recent “competition” against nature when scientists succeeded in creating a new type of enzyme for a reaction for which no naturally occurring enzyme has evolved. This achievement opens the door to the development of a variety of potential applications in medicine and industry.
Enzymes are, without a doubt, a valuable model for understanding the intricate works of nature. These molecular machines – which life would not exist without – are responsible for initiating chemical reactions within the body. Millions of years of natural selection have fine-tuned the activity of such enzymes, allowing chemical reactions to take place millions of times faster. In order to create artificial enzymes, a comprehensive understanding of the structure of natural enzymes and their mode of action, as well as advanced protein engineering techniques, is needed. A team of scientists from the University of Washington, Seattle, and the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, have made a crucial breakthrough toward this endeavor. Their findings have recently been published in the scientific journal Nature.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/feature-stories/prof-ruth-arnon-lessons-from-influenza/
Mar 15, 2020...
With infections, as with football, a best offense is often a good defense. But while that strategy works for many infectious diseases, it doesn’t work with influenza; thanks to its readiness to mutate, the influenza virus effectively “shifts the goalposts” each year, requiring a new vaccination.
Renowned Weizmann Institute immunologist Prof. Ruth Arnon is spearheading a new defense—a universal influenza vaccine that is currently in Phase III of the clinical trial process—that focuses on the parts of the virus that stay the same from year to year, gluing the goalpost to the ground once and for all.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/uncovering-varied-pathways-to-agriculture/
Dec 06, 2017...
Prof. Elisabetta Boaretto and Dr. Tobias Richter. In the foreground is a Natufian hearth at Shubayqa, Jordan
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—December 6, 2017— Around 15,000 years ago, the Natufian culture appeared in what is today’s Middle East. This culture, which straddled the border between nomadic and settled lifestyles, had diverse, complex origins – much more than researchers had assumed. This finding arises from new research by a team of scientists and archaeologists from the Weizmann Institute of Science and the University of Copenhagen.
Sep 19, 2017...
Humans and fish share about 70% of their protein-coding genes, but only about 0.5% of their regulatory long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs)
One often hears about the multitude of genes we have in common with chimps or other living creatures, but such comparisons are sometimes misleading. “Humans and fish, for instance, share about 70% of their protein-coding genes, but only about 0.5% of an important class of regulatory genes – ones that give rise to so-called long non-coding RNAs, or lncRNAs,” says Dr. Igor Ulitsky of the Department of Biological Regulation at the Weizmann Institute of Science.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/feature-stories/un-talks-superbugs-weizmann-takes-action/
Sep 21, 2016...
Prof. Ada Yonath
One of the biggest advances in the history of humankind is the development of antibiotics. They have saved untold millions of lives; rendered toothless diseases that were killers for millennia; and are one of the factors behind humanity’s increasingly long lifespan.
However, like all life forms, bacteria have an imperative: reproduce and live. And they are very good at it. Rapid evolvers, they continually seek ways to get around our killer drugs. And they’re succeeding.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/spare-parts-might-jump-start-protein-design/
Sep 26, 2017...
Computer designs (lime green) are compared with experimental structures (purple) at the atomic level, revealing atomic accuracy in overall structure (left) and in loop regions (right)
The idea of proteins that can be designed on computers for specific functions has been a cutting-edge concept that has stubbornly remained “in the future.” New research at the Weizmann Institute of Science may bring that future a bit closer. By going back to nature’s drawing board – evolution – the scientists have created new proteins, based on “existing natural parts,” that carry out their intended function with flying colors. These findings were reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/left-handed-women-s-quirk-over-sense-of-smell/
Nov 07, 2019...
Image via Shutterstock
Scientists say they have discovered a biological anomaly that could change how we understand our sense of smell.
The study in the journal Neuron shows some people can smell normally, despite missing the part of the brain that is considered to be crucial for smell - the olfactory bulbs.
Lacking bulbs should cause anosmia (being unable to smell).
Curiously, the phenomenon mostly affects left-handed women, and has never been detected in men.
Nov 04, 2013...
JERUSALEM — Israel may not be the most obvious place to study pigs, given that religious strictures in both Judaism and Islam forbid their consumption.
But Israeli researchers involved in a lengthy project whose goal is to reconstruct ancient Israel have now established that the pigs here are of European stock, unlike their Middle Eastern counterparts elsewhere in the region, and that they probably arrived with the non-kosher Philistines about 3,000 years ago.
Jun 01, 2017...
Prof. Yoav Soen sounds almost angry when he talks about the evolutionary concept of natural selection – or, more precisely, its total acceptance – suggesting it blinds people to thinking more broadly. Instead, they simply embrace the theory of evolution developed more than 150 years ago by Charles Darwin.
The blind allegiance to natural selection is a worldwide phenomenon, which is reflected in how research is conducted and scientific questions are explained, says the biomolecular scientist at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot.
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