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/making-larvae-count/
Dec 18, 2017...
This emperor angelfish looks nothing like the tiny larva it started out as
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—December 18, 2017— Almost all the wildly varied, colorful fish that populate coral reefs start life as tiny, colorless, tadpole-like larvae. Telling one from the other is nearly impossible – even for experts – and this presents a difficult challenge to those who study the ecology of the reefs. Prof. Rotem Sorek of the Weizmann Institute of Science; Prof. Roi Holzman of the School of Zoology and the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, Tel Aviv University; and Dr. Moshe Kiflawi of Ben Gurion University have now produced a way to understand precisely which species of larvae are present in the water around reefs. Their study, which involved genetic “barcoding” of nearly all the fish species in the gulf between Eilat and Aqaba, not only showed which larvae were in the gulf, but how many of each were swimming around, at what time of year, and at what depths. This study was published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.
https://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/science-tips-november-2007/
Nov 26, 2007...
Some people are oblivious to the odor in the locker room after a game, while others wrinkle their noses at the slightest whiff of sweat. Research by Prof. Doron Lancet and research student Idan Menashe of the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Molecular Genetics Department, which appeared recently in PLoS Biology, has now shown that this difference is at least partly genetic.
Our sense of smell often takes a back seat to our other senses, but humans can perceive up to 10,000 different odors. Like mice, which boast a highly developed sense of smell, we have about 1,000 different genes for the smell-detecting receptors in our olfactory 'retinas.' In humans, however, over half of these genes have, in the last few million years, become defunct — some in all people, while others in just parts of the population.
Jan 21, 2020...
A new computer algorithm developed by researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot can predict which women are at a high risk of gestational diabetes in the early stages of pregnancy or even before it has occurred, the institute said in a press release Monday afternoon.
The study analyzed data on nearly 600,000 pregnancies available from Israel's largest health insurance provider, Clalit Health Services, the Weizmann Institute of Science said. According to the institute, the algorithm may help prevent gestational diabetes using nutritional and lifestyle changes.
Mar 20, 2019...
Professor Adi Kimchi in her lab at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rechovot. (YouTube screenshot)
Education Minister Naftali Bennett announced Wednesday that Professor Adi Kimchi of the Weizmann Institute of Science is this year’s winner of the Israel Prize for research in life sciences.
Kimchi heads a lab that studies the complex processes of programmed death in living cells.
The prize selection committee noted Kimchi’s pioneering work in isolating genes involved in cells’ self-destruction, a process that, among other things, helps the body suppress cancer development.
Mar 14, 2019...
View of a research chip through a microscope: a high concentration of antifreeze proteins ensures that the drops freeze at temperatures that are less cold than usual. The frozen drops are dark. Photo: Bielefeld University
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—March 14, 2019—Antifreeze is life’s means of surviving in cold winters: natural antifreeze proteins help fish, insects, plants, and even bacteria live through low temperatures that should turn their liquid parts into deadly shards of ice. Strangely enough, in very cold conditions, the same proteins can also promote the growth of ice crystals. This was the finding of experiments carried out in Israel and Germany using proteins taken from fish and beetles. The results of this study, recently published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, could have implications for understanding the basic processes of ice formation.
https://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/science-tips-april-2011/
Mar 31, 2011...
When we suddenly get the answer to a riddle or understand the solution to a problem, we can practically feel the light bulb click on in our head. But what happens after the “aha!” moment? Why do the things we learn through sudden insight tend to stick in our memory?
“Much of memory research involves repetitive, rote learning,” says Kelly Ludmer, a research student in the group of Prof. Yadin Dudai of the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Department of Neurobiology, “but in fact, we regularly absorb large blocks of information in the blink of an eye and remember things quite well from single events. Insight is an example of a one-time event that is often well-preserved in memory.”
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/a-fresh-start/
Oct 25, 2018...
DANIELA NOVICK, 70 FROM PRUDNIK, SILESIA (POLAND), TO REHOVOT, 1957. (photo credit: WEIZMANN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE)
“I come from Poland – shall we begin there?” With a firm step and a friendly smile, Dr. Daniela Novick recounts her family odyssey, from Paris to Lodz, from Kielce to Auschwitz, culminating in a brilliant scientific career at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot that has spanned more than four decades.
Feb 13, 2017...
A cross-section of a mouse liver lobule under a fluorescence microscope. The middle layer reveals an abundance of messenger RNA molecules (white dots) for the gene encoding hepcidin, the iron-regulating hormone
If you get up in the morning feeling energetic and clearheaded, you can thank your liver for manufacturing glucose before breakfast time. Among a host of other vital functions, it also clears our body of toxins and produces most of the carrier proteins in our blood. In a study reported recently in Nature, Weizmann Institute of Science researchers showed that the liver’s amazing multitasking capacity is due at least in part to a clever division of labor among its cells.
https://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/science-tips-october-2014/
Oct 21, 2014... When we talk about global carbon fixation – pumping carbon out of the atmosphere and “fixing” it into organic molecules by photosynthesis – proper measurement is key to understanding the process. By some estimates, almost half of the world’s organic carbon is fixed by marine organisms called phytoplankton – single-celled photosynthetic organisms that account for less than one percent of the total photosynthetic biomass on Earth.
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