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://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/science-tips-november-2013/
Nov 25, 2013... Chromosomes — the 46 tightly wrapped packages of genetic material in our cells — are iconically depicted as X-shaped formations. However, those neat X’s only appear when a cell is about to divide and the entire contents of its genome duplicated. Until now, researchers have not been able to get a good picture of the way that our DNA — some two meters of strands, all told — is neatly bundled into the nucleus while enabling day-to-day (non-dividing) gene activity. A combination of new techniques for sequencing DNA in individual chromosomes and analyzing data from thousands of measurements has given us a new picture of the three-dimensional (3D) structures of chromosomes. This method, reported recently in Nature, is the result of an international collaboration that promises to help researchers understand the basic processes by which gene expression is regulated and genome stability is maintained.
https://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/the-transformation/
Sep 15, 2014...
An experimental new drug can make some leukemic cells mature into healthier ones. Illustration by Brian Stauffer
For almost thirty years, William Kuhens worked on Staten Island as a basketball referee for the Catholic Youth Organization and other amateur leagues. At seventy, he was physically fit, taking part in twenty games a month. But in July of 2013 he began to lose weight and feel exhausted; his wife told him he looked pale. He saw his doctor, and tests revealed that his blood contained below-normal numbers of platelets and red and white blood cells; these are critical for, respectively, preventing bleeding, supplying oxygen, and combatting infection. Kuhens was sent to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, in Manhattan, to meet with Eytan Stein, an expert in blood disorders. Stein found that as much as fifteen per cent of Kuhens’s bone marrow was made up of primitive, cancerous blood cells. “Mr. Kuhens was on the cusp of leukemia,” Stein told me recently. “It seemed that his disease was rapidly advancing.”
Jul 25, 2018...
A “walk” in composition space for a “Lipid World” molecular assembly, shown in simplified 3D. A point on the line signifies a specific composition along the time axis, whereby the three coordinates are amounts of the three different molecule types. A “composome” (pink background) is a time interval when the composition stays almost unchanged, signifying compositional replication.
In 1924, Russian biochemist Alexander Oparin claimed that life on Earth developed through gradual chemical changes of organic molecules in the “primordial soup” that likely existed here four billion years ago. In his view, the complex combination of lifeless molecules, joining forces within small oily droplets, could assume life faculties – self-replication, selection, and evolution. These ideas were received with considerable doubt, which remains today.
https://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://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/study-scientists-revive-old-fading-memories/
Mar 03, 2011... What would it be like if you never forgot — if your brain were able to access your haziest long-term memories as though they had just been freshly made? For the first time, working in rats, researchers have enhanced weak, old memories by tweaking an enzyme in the brain. The findings not only deepen understanding of how memory works, but offer new hope for the development of treatments for Alzheimer’s and other memory-destroying diseases.
Jul 15, 2013...
Scientists have found that very high levels of stress in the mother can also overwhelm the barrier enzyme in the placenta, allowing the stress hormone cortisol to cross into the foetus’s brain. Photo: PA
Researchers have discovered a key component of the placenta that normally protects unborn babies from high levels of hormones that build up in their mothers’ blood when she is stressed.
In some mothers, however, this protective element can be faulty, allowing the foetus to be exposed to stress hormones and leaving a child more prone to anxiety and depression in later life.
https://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/what-gives-the-beach-that-smell-sulfur-making-algae/
Jun 30, 2015...
Close your eyes and conjure up your paradise vacation: umbrellaed drink in hand, trashy detective novel perched on your knee, the rhythmic swell of waves in your ears, and of course – the fresh, briny smell of the sea.
That poetic smell comes, in part, from a not-so-poetically-named sulfur compound called dimethyl sulfide, or DMS, a key player in ocean ecosystems and weather patterns. Now, scientists from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel have figured out how a particular ocean algae – one that dwells in the upper sunlit part of the sea – makes the aromatic chemical.
https://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/defending-against-chemical-acts-of-terrorism/
Apr 19, 2012... Researchers may have found a way to protect us against otherwise deadly chemical attacks, such as the subway sarin incident in Tokyo that left thirteen people dead and thousands more injured or with temporary vision problems. The method is based on a new and improved version of a detoxifying enzyme produced naturally by our livers, according to the report in the April 2012 issue of Chemistry & Biology, a Cell Press publication.
Mar 03, 2011...
Precious memories need not fade if a report today bears fruit. Neuroscientists have successfully strengthened old memories in rats, according to research published today in Science.
A handful of substances can strengthen memories as they’re being made. But a greater aim for neuroscientists is to learn how to enhance existing, older memories, such as where you live or your grandson’s name—memories often lost because of dementia or amnesia.
Oct 16, 2013...
Bruriya Ben Zee Photo: Courtesy Sheba Medical Center
Mutations in genes responsible for two serious neurological disorders in infants and children of Iranian and Bukharan origin that had not been described until now have been identified by researchers at Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer, the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot and Duke University in North Carolina.
Their work has just been published in the prestigious journals Neuron and the American Journal of Human Genetics.
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