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://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/making-cancer-immunotherapy-more-accessible/
Oct 15, 2021... REHOVOT, ISRAEL—October 15, 2021—Immunotherapy has sparked new hope for people with cancer, but for it to work, the patient’s immune system must be able to “see” the tumor. There are ways of enhancing this recognition in individual cases, yet such solutions are, by definition, personalized, which greatly limits their use. Prof. Yardena Samuels and her PhD student Dr. Aviyah Peri of the Weizmann Institute of Science, together with their colleagues, have now developed a method for identifying cancer “hotspots,” features that are common to many tumors and can therefore be used to develop effective immunotherapy for entire groups of patients. The researchers have already used the method to identify a hotspot characteristic of a particularly aggressive form of melanoma in one major subset of patients. The study is being published today in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
https://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/feature-stories/spotting-hotspots-for-cancer-immunotherapy/
Nov 18, 2021...
Immunotherapy has a great deal of potential for cancer patients, but for it to work, the immune system must be able to spot the tumor. Fortunately, new research by Weizmann’s own Prof. Yardena Samuels and her team is helping to do just that, and it could lead to off-the-shelf therapies being developed for entire groups of patients.
Prof. Samuels, her PhD student Dr. Aviyah Peri and their colleagues have now developed a method for identifying cancer “hotspots,” which are features that are common to many tumors and can therefore be used to develop effective immunotherapy for entire groups of patients. The researchers have already used the method to identify a hotspot characteristic of a particularly aggressive form of melanoma in one major subset of patients.
https://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/antibodies-fight-cancer-too/
Mar 23, 2022...
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—March 23, 2022—Immunotherapies for cancer rely on recruiting the patient’s immune system, but they still fall far short of tapping into the entire arsenal of the body’s natural defenses. In fact, most such therapies draw on one type of immune defense: the ability of T cells to battle the tumor.
A new study at the Weizmann Institute of Science, published in Cell, paves the way toward an immunotherapy that will exploit a different, previously unused immune system weapon: naturally produced antibodies.
Aug 08, 2023...
To protect itself against disease, the human body has immune cells that patrol like police officers, entering disease cells and destroying them. But some dangerous cells, including some solid tumors, operate in stealth and cannot be targeted by the body’s regular immune system.
Edity Therapeutics, an Israeli startup founded in 2019, reprograms a patient’s own immune cells, giving them the ability to hunt down and destroy these cancer cells. It’s like transforming regular beat cops into lethal supersleuths.
Aug 08, 2023... Israeli study finds biological treatment effective for lung cancer