Israel Active

Maya Ben Yitzhak, a lone IDF soldier from Chicago, saved the life of a 64-year-old Massachusetts doctor after she donated her bone marrow through Ezer Mizion. Dr. Rothenberg has been battling multiple forms of cancer since she was first diagnosed with the disease in 2014.

15-year-old Lana, from Tel Aviv, used skills from her MDA youth training to identify a life-threatening condition in her father’s brain and urged immediate hospital care.  Doctors diagnosed and treated a severe bacterial infection in his brain and said that Lana’s actions had saved his life.

Norman Rosenbaum (see previously), a retired surgeon and newsletter subscriber living in North London, passed away aged 90. Over two decades, he crowdfunded 16 ambulances for Israel’s emergency service Magen David Adom, which helped save some 132,000 lives and deliver 997 babies.

Israel’s Alphabiome uses AI and and analytics to identify previously uncharacterized microbial DNA patterns that are scattered across different chromosomes, microbes, and biological kingdoms in the human microbiome. It could lead to new therapies for huge numbers of diseases.

On International Nurses Day, the University of Haifa received $10 million from the Azrieli Foundation to establish the “Azrieli Advanced Nursing Center” (ADVANCE). This donation, one of the largest ever given to an academic institution in Israel for the field of nursing.

17 years after its founding, Israeli non-profit Jeremy’s Circle (see previously) connects 1,100 families across Israel. Its aim is the same - give children suffering cancer the tools to process, connect, and thrive. It has teamed up with Lev Echad and is now bringing its programs to the USA.

Sheba Medical Center, the largest hospital in Israel, has announced that it will open its first U.S.-based health-care startup accelerator in Massachusetts in 2026. It will join existing hubs in London, Berlin, Singapore, Melbourne and New Zealand as part of Sheba’s ARC innovation network,

UK giant AstraZeneca is teaming up with Tel Aviv University and the Meuhedet and Leumit health funds to launch “Beam” - Illuminating Healthcare Through Data Center. Anonymized data will help AstraZeneca understand disease mechanisms and more.

Israel’s Polyrizon (see previously) announced the successful preliminary safety study for a formulation of its PL-14 Allergy Blocker, marking a significant advancement in the product’s development path.

Israel’s Nanox (see previously) has received US-FDA general use approval for the Nanox.ARC X, its new multi-source digital tomosynthesis system. Its sliced 3D views include the musculoskeletal system, and pulmonary, intra-abdominal and paranasal sinus indications.