Israel Active

Ilan, the official photographer for the Hapoel Jerusalem basketball team, suffered a heart attack shortly before his team’s hoops game with Hapoel Tel Aviv. With only minutes of life left, Gal, an MDA paramedic, used a defibrillator to restart his heart. Great story for National Public Defibrillator Awareness Day.

Scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute discovered some remarkable actions of the immune system when faced with multiple viral or bacterial infections. Two mechanisms – innate and adaptive immunity are deployed and may change vaccines production and autoimmune disease therapies.

Researchers at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University studied 1,657 families of twins born in 2004/5. In 63 cases, one of the twins had a development delay or disability. The other twin was found to have a higher cognitive empathy than those with a normal twin.

Neuroscientist Amir Amedi from Israel’s Reichman University, has invented multisensory devices to relax patients awaiting cancer radiation therapy at Israeli hospitals. These include 3D VR glasses, smart tables and chairs, breathing sensors, and in-ear recordings.

Ben Gurion University’s 46th Webinar Wednesday featured BGU Professor Shelly Levy-Tzedek, who discussed how robots can help in the process of rehabilitation. This includes physical assistance (e.g., post-stroke, Parkinson’s, or aging) and social assistance. The video also stars Pepper the robot.

Great feature by VeryGoodNewsIsrael subscriber Diana Bletter about Technion Professor Hossam Haick (see previously). His expertise in nanotechnology has led to 42 patents and the inventions of the cancer SniffPhone, NaNose, molecular sutures, skin sensors and more.

Technion Professor Yoram Palti has been awarded the Israel Prize in the Field of Entrepreneurship and Technological Innovation. Prof Palti founded Israel’s Novocure (see previously) that developed a groundbreaking cancer treatment (especially brain cancer) using electric pulses.

Israel’s PulmOne (see previously) has developed the MiniBox+, a revolutionary lung function device about the size of a desktop computer. It has the potential to help diagnose many of the half a billion people around the world who suffer from lung disease.  The MiniBox+ is FDA approved.

After 68 years, Yair’s complex congenital heart defect finally caught up with him. Luckily, the years also brought new advances and, for the first time in Israel, instead of open-heart surgery, his irregular pulse could be resolved at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Center using cardiac catheterization.

Israel’s AdOM Advanced Optical Technologies has developed the Tear Film Imager (TFI) which, in 40 seconds, measures the tear film layer of the eye to detect if someone has coronavirus. Israel’s Sheba Medical Center is now recruiting volunteers for a clinical study of the TFI.