Israel Active

Israel’s Sheba Medical Center has again been ranked as the 10th best hospital in the world by Newsweek Magazine. Sheba also announced a partnership with GE Healthcare to develop digital healthcare solutions in cardiology, remote pregnancy monitoring and molecular imaging.

Several issues of the international journal Advanced Materials, including cover pages, feature the breakthrough skin patches developed in the lab of Israel’s Technion Arab Professor Hossam Haick (see previously). They include , (and ), , and .

Illumina - the world's leading DNA sequencing company, worth over $50 billion, is opening a Center of Excellence in Tel Aviv. It will develop Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions that dramatically shorten genome analysis time for diagnosing rare diseases and transform lives.

Israel’s AEYE Health (see previously) has just completed Phase 3 clinical trials of its hand-held retinal analysis system. The hand-held fundus camera and single-image AI software detected diabetic retinopathy with high accuracy, far better than current expensive specialist cameras.

Israel’s OneStep uses the power of the smartphone to analyze gait (how you walk) and provide feedback directly to patients and their physical therapists. OneStep is partnering with Kinomatic in the US to bring OneStep’s app to all patients using Kinomatic's Virtual Reality solution.

The ELGN-GI insulin formulation developed by Israel’s Elgan can save the lives of preterm babies with immature stomachs that cause feeding intolerance. It will avoid the adverse effects of intravenous nutrition, which often leads to infection and liver problems. A Phase 3 trial is being planned.

Scientists from Israel’s Rabin Medical Center and the Weizmann Institute studied the microbiome of 200 patients just hours after a heart attack. They found most were missing a Clostridiaceae family bacterium that was present in a control group. They are now isolating it into pill form.

The calcification of heart valves is currently resolved by transplanting a new prosthetic valve (see above). Israel’s Pi-Cardia (see previously) has been developing the Leaflex system to treat the calcification, and is currently conducting human clinical trials across Europe.

An Israeli-led team of researchers has prevented the deterioration of bioprosthetic heart valves (of animal origin). These last only 10 years due to calcification of the tissues. They used hearts from pigs that were engineered to stop expressing foreign sugars and this prevented calcification.

Scientists at Israel’s Technion Institute have found that misfolding proteins in the brain cells of ALS and Huntington’s sufferers can be corrected by other proteins already in the cell, called “chaperones”. But the cell doesn’t activate them or activates the wrong ones! New treatments are anticipated.