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/blog/ebola-is-still-killing-people-can-new-vaccines-help/
Aug 27, 2019...
Warning, again: While not making global headlines like it used to, Ebola rages on. A sign in the Congo warns that Ebola is in the area and to avoid dead animals, which are a vector for the virus.
The massive 2014-16 outbreak of Ebola in Africa was the first time many of us had heard of the virus. The stories and images of horribly sick and dying people, the selfless doctors and nurses in their too-often-insufficient protective gear, the concern that the virus’s spread could not be stopped: for a while, Ebola was in the global consciousness. Then, thanks to efforts on a number of fronts, the outbreak was quashed. Our attention faded accordingly.
Mar 20, 2020...
Dear friends and members of the Weizmann Institute of Science community,
The coronavirus outbreak is a global challenge that forces us all to significantly and rapidly adjust our way of life and change our work routines.
Just a few months ago we might have imagined such an event playing out only in books or movies. But epidemiologists, immunologists, and public health officials have long anticipated the possibility of a pandemic. The theoretical policies developed during these more peaceful days are now being implemented worldwide to address the current crisis.
https://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/feature-stories/stopping-disease-with-smarter-vaccines/
Aug 13, 2018...
The Weizmann Institute of Science pursues a host of health and medicine research, finding ways to understand and treat diseases large and small. But what if, instead of fighting an illness after it strikes, we could prevent it in the first place?
Several of Weizmann’s creative, innovative scientists are aiming to do just that by developing vaccines that target conditions from the flu to the aging brain:
https://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/executive-suite-leemor-joshua-tor/
Mar 30, 2014...
Leemor Joshua-Tor in her Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory facility on March 18, 2014. She is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. Credit: Newsday / Audrey C. Tiernan
Leemor Joshua-Tor caught the scientific world's attention in 2004 when her gene-silencing discoveries contributed an important clue in the fight against viruses and diseases such as macular degeneration and cancer. As a principal investigator, she defines research projects and then must figure out how to fund them.
https://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/scientists-identify-a-viral-communication-system/
Jan 20, 2017...
FLICKR, NATURALISMIS
The viruses that attack Bacillus subtilis may decide whether to kill or simply infect their hosts through quorum sensing, according to study published this week (January 18) in Nature. Researchers isolated the peptide that the viruses appear to be using to communicate, and named it “arbitrium.” If confirmed, the results of the study would be the first description of a molecular communication system between viruses, and potentially open the door to therapies that target the viral communication system.
Dec 26, 2011... REHOVOT, ISRAEL—December 26, 2011—A team of Weizmann Institute of Science researchers has turned the tables on an autoimmune disease. In such diseases, including Crohn’s and rheumatoid arthritis, the immune system mistakenly attacks the body’s tissues. But the scientists managed to trick the immune systems of mice into targeting one of the body’s players in autoimmune processes, an enzyme known as MMP9. The results of their research appear in Nature Medicine.
https://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/ebola-antibodies-at-work/
Oct 07, 2019... In the recurring, deadly Ebola outbreaks in parts of Africa, today’s health workers now have at least some tools to fight the disease: vaccines. Vaccines against Ebola have been administered to over 100,000 people to date, but they are barely out of the experimental stage. It is not known how well these vaccines will provide long-term protection across a broad population. Furthermore, on the basic scientific level, the effects of vaccination on the immune system and how the immune response of vaccinated individuals compares with that of individuals who have survived Ebola infections was not known. A Weizmann Institute of Science lab recently joined forces with a research team in Cologne, Germany, to uncover the details of the molecular response that occurs in the immune system after vaccination against Ebola. Their findings may help health organizations devise better strategies for containing and preventing the disease.
https://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/feature-stories/matching-proteins-defeating-disease/
Nov 16, 2016...
Dr. Sarel Fleishman
With dating sites, you can search for a partner who has everything you want, from physical attributes to religious beliefs, education to hobbies, geography to age – and yet finding a mate is challenging for many. Wouldn’t it be nice if the other person could be changed here and there to meet your requirements?
This wish-list technology doesn’t exist yet … for humans. For proteins, it’s another matter, thanks to Dr. Sarel Fleishman at the Weizmann Institute of Science. “I started my career asking, essentially, how do proteins mate?” he says. “They each have knobs and holes that must fit together in a complementary way.”
https://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/hiv-could-fight-immune-diseases/
Aug 26, 2005...
The mechanism that HIV uses to gag the immune system could be turned against some very different foes: autoimmune diseases such as diabetes, multiple sclerosis and rehumatoid arthritis.
HIV is a master of attack silencing the T-cells that usually alert the immune system at the moment of invasion. But until now, little was known about how it did this.
Irun Cohen and his colleagues at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, and Harvard University reasoned that the mechanism for binding the virus to its target might also disable the T-cell's alarm call. If so, it could be used to inhibit the overactive immune response seen in autoimmune diseases.
Jun 27, 2016...
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—June 27, 2016—Disrupted fetal immune system development, such as that caused by viral infection in the mother, may be a key factor in the later appearance of certain neurodevelopmental disorders. This finding emerges from a Weizmann Institute study published in Science on June 23.
The study may explain, among other things, how the mother’s infection with the cytomegalovirus (CMV) during pregnancy, which affects her own and her fetus’s immune system, increases the risk that her offspring will develop autism or schizophrenia, sometimes years later. This increased risk of neurodevelopmental diseases was discovered many years ago in epidemiological studies and confirmed in mouse models, and now the Weizmann study – led by Dr. Ido Amit of the Department of Immunology and Prof. Michal Schwartz of the Department of Neurobiology – provides a possible explanation for this increase on the cellular and the mechanistic molecular levels.
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