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.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/marine-green-slime-to-save-the-planet/
Oct 03, 2012...
The expedition in the north Atlantic Ocean. Photo by Assaf Vardi
As the northern hemisphere sweltered in summer, more than 30 scientists, led by an Israeli biologist, were spending the month of June on a ship in the north Atlantic Ocean. Their mission: to find green slime. Or more specifically — blankets of phytoplankton: single-cell algae that grow in masses on the ocean’s surface. These blankets can grow to thousands of square kilometers.
Mar 19, 2020... REHOVOT, ISRAEL—March 17, 2020—In light of the severe constraints in performing a sufficient amount of coronavirus tests in Israel, the Weizmann Institute of Science has decided to contribute significantly to the national mission and use its advanced laboratories to perform coronavirus tests. In parallel, Weizmann Institute scientists are developing an advanced and very efficient testing approach that has a significantly reduced risk.
Jul 13, 2013...
Kertesz. 'Israel has an abundance of talent and motivation, but not of biotech investments. [Biotech] requires tens of millions of dollars and years of development, which aren’t always fruitful.' Photo by Eyal Toueg
A small American start-up managed to streamline complex DNA-sequencing techniques. Its co-founder, Mickey Kertesz, thinks the greatest breakthrough may come in the field of cancer treatment.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/will-this-man-discover-a-vaccine-for-hiv/
Feb 18, 2014...
HIV researcher Ron Diskin
The search for a cure or vaccine for HIV hasn’t always inspired optimism—but hopes are buoyed now by recent advances, including a new understanding about how certain rare antibodies can fight the virus.
“There has been a substantial amount of research that has already been done” since scientists isolated some such antibodies in 2009 and 2010, says Ron Diskin, a biomedical researcher at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, who recently visited the U.S. to share some of his findings and participate in a variety of HIV awareness efforts with the Consulate General of Israel in Los Angeles.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/coronavirus-by-the-numbers/
Mar 31, 2020... REHOVOT, ISRAEL—March 31, 2020—Numerical data sometimes reveal facts that are otherwise concealed within an onslaught of information from an overwhelming number of sources. Prof. Ron Milo and research student Yinon Bar-On of the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, together with American colleagues Prof. Rob Phillips of Caltech and Dr. Avi Flamholz of the University of California, Berkeley, have now employed an original research method to organize the flood of coronavirus information in an orderly framework.
Mar 28, 2019...
Imagine the ability to prevent all strains of the flu for many years—in a single shot. In the third episode of Weizmann in Focus, CEO Dave Doneson spotlights Prof. Ruth Arnon’s remarkable progress on a universal flu vaccine. The vaccine, being brought to market by Israeli startup Biondvax, holds the promise of protecting us from current and future varieties of the virus.
Click below to watch—and please share the video with friends via email or social media.
Mar 17, 2020...
Israeli researchers hope to use artificial intelligence to map clusters of the new coronavirus in order to aid government efforts to curb the spread of the disease. To that end, scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem are collecting information about symptoms from interested members of the public.
The scientists leading the new project hope that after they gather sufficient data to prove its efficacy, the Health Ministry will add it to the growing number of tools that are being employed to address this unprecedented public health crisis.
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/intermittent-lockdown/
Mar 31, 2020... REHOVOT, ISRAEL—March 31, 2020—Think of dieting. You can fast for two months and lose weight, but you will probably die. Even if you survive, you will quickly gain weight again. Similarly, a two-month lockdown will suppress the coronavirus, but it will kill the economy. Lockdown will push hundreds of millions of people globally into unemployment and poverty. Many sectors of the economy will collapse. At the end of each lockdown, remaining patients will cause a resurge in the epidemic, forcing another lockdown.
Jan 13, 2020...
A group of scientists led by a team from the Weizmann Institute of Science has devised a decoy molecule that could lead to the treatment of viruses that cross over from animals to humans.
A host of disease-causing viruses, which are called arenaviruses, “lurk in animal populations in various parts of the world, sometimes crossing over into humans,” the Rehovot-based Weizmann Institute said in a statement. “When they do cross over, they can be lethal, and only very few treatments exist.”