Israel Active

Downton Abbey creator Lord Julian Fellowes was successfully treated for essential tremor at St. Mary’s Hospital, London with the incisionless focused ultrasound therapy from Israel’s Insightec. He had lost the ability to write by hand due to involuntary shaking.

The new US policy announcement making In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) more accessible is good news for Israel, which has been at the forefront of IVF treatment for decades. It opens up a massive opportunity for medical technology companies, particularly in Israel’s vibrant fem-tech scene.

A new study from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem shows that the auditory cortex, one of the brain’s main sound-processing centers, changes how it operates when we focus on a task. It synchronizes its activity to the rhythm of the task rather than merely reacting to sounds.

Israel’s Immunai has used its immune system AI mapping platform to discover a novel therapeutic target for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Immunai has partnered with AstraZeneca who will develop the therapy, which if successful will earn Immunai up to $85 million.

Israel’s CAPS Medical (see previously) has received FDA Breakthrough Device Designation for its its PlasmaSure™ System to treat low- to intermediate-risk non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC).

I missed this discovery in May by scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute. They identified that ROR-gamma-T cells trigger a chain reaction of four types of immune cells, which stop the body’s attacking cells (CD8 cells) from responding to food proteins.

Israel’s CorNeat Vision (see previously) has implanted its KPro artificial cornea to restore perfect vision in a patient blinded by corneal scarring from the Shingles virus. In addition, the eye, once deformed by shingles, now looks remarkably natural and healthy.

Israel’s has partnered with New York's CHDI Foundation to build one of the largest eye movement datasets for Huntington’s Disease. It will support CHDI’s work to develop sensitive, trial-ready tools with the potential to develop HD therapies.

Israel’s Inspira Technologies (see previously) announced that a top U.S. hospital has expanded its clinical use of the INSPIRA ART100 system to lung transplantation procedures, one of the most demanding applications in advanced respiratory care.

Wounded Israeli soldiers are surviving serious injuries that would have been impossible just a few years ago. E.g., drones parachuting temperature-controlled whole blood units into the battlefield; or a portable device that separates oxygen from the air and uses it to ventilate wounded soldiers.