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.
Jul 22, 2019...
When immune cells (macrophage, blue) meet bacteria (red), the first day or two is critical for the eventual outcome
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—July 22, 2019—First impressions are important – they can set the stage for the entire course of a relationship. The same is true for the impressions the cells of our immune system form when they first meet a new bacterium. Using this insight, Weizmann Institute of Science researchers have developed an algorithm that may predict the onset of diseases such as tuberculosis. The findings of this research were published in Nature Communications.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/gene-editing-takes-on-new-roles/
Dec 15, 2016...
Combing CRISPR with the fine resolution of single-cell RNA sequencing gives researchers new means of controlling cell activities
What combinations of mutations help cancer cells survive? Which cells in the brain are involved in the onset of Alzheimer’s? How do immune cells conduct their convoluted decision-making processes? Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science have now combined two powerful research tools – CRISPR gene editing and single-cell genomic profiling – in a method that may finally help provide answers to these questions and many more.
Aug 14, 2018...
An ultrasound electrocardiogram
Utrasound equipment has shrunk in both size and price in recent years – so much so that it is now standard in hospitals and clinics all over the world. But today’s ultrasound still requires a highly trained expert to acquire the image and interpret the results, and this has prevented its use in certain settings – for example, in urgent care. In a joint venture they call On-Sight, computer scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science and a cardiologist at the New York University School of Medicine have teamed up to develop an automated system that guides the operator in acquiring the images and then accurately interprets the results for physicians. This venture was recently awarded first place in the third Echovation Challenge of the American Society of Echocardiography.
Apr 24, 2018...
Kevin Hong for Quanta Magazine
A paper posted online in January takes theoretical computer scientists halfway toward proving one of the biggest conjectures in their field. The new study, when combined with three other recent papers, offers the first tangible progress toward proving the Unique Games Conjecture since it was proposed in 2002 by Subhash Khot, a computer scientist now at New York University.
Sep 27, 2017... Each summer, the Kupcinet-Getz International Science School offers outstanding undergraduate students from around the world the opportunity to spend two months conducting research at the Weizmann Institute. For Alice Chudnovsky, now a sophomore at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, participating in the program was the opportunity of a lifetime. Here, Alice reflects on her transformative summer at Weizmann, her passion for Israel and mathematics, and her efforts to encourage women in her field.
Dec 15, 2011...
Baseball produces a welter of data, from which correlations can be drawn – for example between the number of hits and a player’s salary. Donald Miralle / Getty Images
The US humorist Evan Esar once called statistics the science of producing unreliable facts from reliable figures. An innovative technique now promises to make those facts a whole lot more dependable.
Brothers David Reshef of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Yakir Reshef, now at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, and their coworkers have devised a method to extract from complex sets of data relationships and trends that are invisible to other types of statistical analysis. They describe their approach in Science today.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/unveiling-the-depths-of-jupiter-s-winds/
Mar 07, 2018...
Jupiter’s south pole, taken during a Juno flyby, Dec 16, 2017. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—March 7, 2018—Three papers appearing in Nature on March 8 answer a question that scientists have been asking ever since Galileo first observed the famous stripes of Jupiter: Are the colorful bands just a pretty surface phenomenon, or are they a significant stratum of the planet? The Weizmann Institute of Science’s Prof. Yohai Kaspi led this research, in which measurements from NASA’s Juno spacecraft were analyzed to reveal that the stripes – belts of strong winds circling the planet – extend to a depth of about 3,000 km (about 1,900 miles). That is quite a bit deeper than previous estimates, and is revising scientists’ picture of Jupiter’s atmosphere as well as its inner layers.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/algo-vision-a-glimpse-into-the-future/
Jun 15, 2017...
For humans, seeing really is believing. That’s probably because sight is the most sophisticated of all the senses. So sophisticated, in fact, that 40 per cent of our brain is devoted to processing visual data.
If scientists could find a way to create artificial seeing systems with human-like capabilities, it would represent a major technological breakthrough. Computers would be able to replace human eyes, both in the performance of labour-intensive tasks and in more complex processes such as identifying individual cancer cells among normal tissue. Such systems could even help visually-impaired people to “see.”
May 10, 2018...
A top view of the ants carrying the cargo item (wheel-like object). Credit: Jonathan Ron, Ehud Fonio
Ants working together to carry a large piece of food get around obstacles by switching between two types of motion: one that favors squeezing the morsel through a hole and another to seek a path around the barrier. Jonathan Ron of the Weizmann Institute, Israel, and colleagues present these findings in PLOS Computational Biology.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/how-to-mix-the-perfect-cocktail/
Dec 07, 2016... Drug cocktails, such as those for treating cancer, are best when the proper ingredients are mixed in the right proportions – just like the alcoholic versions offered at the local bar. And like the cocktails we normally drink, the sum of the parts can be better than the ingredients on their own – or we can be left with unwanted side effects. Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS), a new model developed in the group of Prof. Uri Alon of the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Department of Molecular Cell Biology can simplify the process of identifying the optimal blends for drug cocktails – even when a large number of ingredients is called for.
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