Israel Active

Researchers at Tel Aviv University have developed an research model to decode the mechanism underlying a severe and rare neurological disease. A mutation in the protein TIMM50 causes epilepsy, developmental delay, and intellectual disability. It could lead to new treatments for many diseases.

The non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) technology from Israel’s IdentifAI (see previously) can detect any of 250 hereditary genetic disorders from a maternal blood sample. It isolates and performs full genetic sequencing of fetal DNA as early as nine weeks of pregnancy.

Dozens of Jewish doctors, many planning to make Aliyah in the near future, gathered in Los Angeles for the inaugural MedEx LA fair. It follows recent MedEx events in London, Paris, Buenos Aires, and New Jersey, addressing Israel’s shortage of doctors plus easing the Aliya process for them.

The Council for Higher Education in Israel has granted approval to the independent Reichman University in Herzliya to establish a Medical School.  Eighty medical students will be enrolled in the first four-year program, which will begin in February 2025.

Israel’s Insightec has received both FDA approval and the CE mark for its Exablate Prime focused ultrasound system integrated with MR scanners from medical equipment giant Philips. It extends Insightec’s treatment of essential tremor and Parkinson's patients.

Video animation on how the spine implant from Israel’s Discure Technologies (see previously) restores the natural pumping function of a damaged disc to cure back pain.

Israel’s Converge Bio (see previously) builds large language models (LLMs) that accelerate the research process and remove much of the guesswork for biotech companies. It’s like ChatGPT for therapy development. It saves the trial and error, cost and time to develop new therapies.

Two doctors from Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical organization have been awarded a grant from the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Dr. Shani Paluch-Shimon and Dr. Michal Braun will study the varying cancer treatment outcomes with the diverse populations in Israel.

For easy general queries, chatbots can usually answer most medical queries. But for doctors wishing to diagnose and treat life-threatening conditions, they are not effective. Scientists at Israel’s Ben Gurion University have devised a questionnaire for comparing AI software.

Israel’s Droxi (see previously) has developed a software platform to help doctors manage administrative burdens. The idea for Droxi came after a medical error that harmed co-founder CEO Gadi Shenhar’s grandmother. Both co-founders are graduates of the elite IDF 8200 unit and the Technion.