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.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/bacteria-alert-by-scientist/
Dec 01, 2017...
The Israeli crystallographer, who shared the chemistry Nobel with Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas A. Steitz in 2009 for her work on ribosome, was delivering the 79th Foundation Day lecture on “Next Generation Environmental Friendly Antibiotics” at Bose Institute on Thursday.
“Resistance to antibiotics is a real big problem to modern medicine. Multi-drug resistance has developed not because we use antibiotics, but because bacteria has evolved and uses mechanisms against other bacteria in their fight for resources,” Yonath said.
Jun 14, 2017...
However, being savvy about nutrition may not be as easy as we thought, as some of our traditional assumptions about food are now being challenged.
You’re about to make a sandwich. Do your reach for the freshly stone-milled whole-grain wheat flour, sourdough leavening, superior ingredients baked in a stone-hearth oven to create a picture-perfect, super-healthy loaf of artisanal bread? Or, white bread—the industrial kind made from white flour.
May 30, 2015...
Weizmann Institute of Science. (photo credit:MICHAEL JACOBSON/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS)
Researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science and Tel Aviv University have discovered for the first time how the immune system in bacteria manages to recognize the difference between “foreign” and “self” and fight off invasive viruses called phages.
From single cells to humans, the first challenge of any immune system is to detect this key difference, but it’s far from simple – as viruses, bacteria and all other living things are made of DNA and proteins. Their findings were published online recently in the prestigious journal Nature.
Mar 04, 2019...
Lymphoid organs in the small intestines. Red: B cells aggregated in the “training centers.” Green: cells with the ability to secrete effective antibodies exiting the centers for the intestinal tissue
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—March 4, 2019—Only a few vaccines – for example, polio and rotavirus – can be given orally. Most must be delivered by injection. Weizmann Institute of Science researchers suggest this may be, in part, because the “training program” of the immune cells in the gut takes place under harsh conditions. Using a novel imaging method that captures all of the immune cells’ niches within a single organ, Dr. Ziv Shulman and research student Adi Biram investigated the training process for the gut-based cells involved in long-term immunity. Their findings, published in Nature Immunology, provide new insights that may, in the future, lead to the design of more effective oral vaccines.
Jul 23, 2019...
Image by Tashatuvango via Shutterstock.com
A trailblazing study by Israeli researchers suggests that intestinal microbes may have a direct effect on the course of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the incurable, fatal neurodegenerative disease also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease that affected physicist Stephen Hawking.
Published today in Nature, the study by researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science revealed that the progression of an ALS-like disease in lab mice was slowed after the mice received certain strains of gut microbes or substances known to be secreted by these microbes.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/the-dust-storm-microbiome/
Jun 27, 2017...
Dust storm in Timna Park, Israel
Israel is subjected to sand and dust storms from several directions: northeast from the Sahara, northwest from Saudi Arabia, and southwest from the desert regions of Syria. The airborne dust carried in these storms affects the health of people and ecosystems alike. New research at the Weizmann Institute of Science suggests that part of the effect might not be in the particles of dust but rather in bacteria that cling to them, traveling many kilometers in the air with the storms.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/bacterial-immune-systems-take-the-stage/
Apr 08, 2018...
Bacteria (illustrative). (photo credit: REUTERS)
Until a decade ago, scientists were not aware that bacteria had complex immune systems that could keep up with the pace of evolution in viruses called phages that infect bacteria. That changed with the discovery of what is now the most famous bacterial immune mechanism: CRISPR. This is a natural gene editor that has revolutionized the world of biological research in thousands of labs around the world. Researchers now understand that most microorganisms have sophisticated immune systems of which CRISPR is just one element; but there has been no good way to identify these systems.
May 25, 2017...
A scientist looks through a microscope. (photo credit:INGIMAGE)
Israeli startup BiomX, which is developing a treatment that selectively kills specific bacteria, last week completed a $24 million financing round. The company was founded in 2015 on the basis of research by two Weizmann Institute scientists: Dr. Eran Elinav, a specialist in microbiome – the mix of bacteria in the human body (he is also known from DayTwo, which developed an app for nutritional consultation according to a person’s individual composition of bacteria), and Professor Rotem Sorek, an expert in genetic engineering and bacterial genetics. The third founder is MIT Professor Timothy K. Lu, who specializes in genetic engineering of anti-bacterial viruses.
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.
Jan 21, 2020...
Non-communicable diseases including heart disease, cancer and lung disease are now the most common causes of death, accounting for 70 percent of deaths worldwide. These diseases are considered “non-communicable” because they are thought to be caused by a combination of genetic, lifestyle and environmental factors and can't be transmitted between people.
A new research paper in Science by a team of fellows in CIFAR's Humans and the Microbiome program throws this long-held belief into question by providing evidence that many diseases may be transmissible between people through microbes (including bacteria, fungi, and viruses) that live in and on our bodies.
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