Israel Active

Three life-science multinationals will grow their Israeli R&D centers over the next six years. GE Healthcare’s ultrasound, Change Healthcare’s cardiology and Medtronic’s imaging systems will receive a boost via a $33 million grant from the Israel Innovation Authority.

Researchers at Tel Aviv University and the University of California have identified the reason for some dyslexics having low decoding skills but high reading comprehension. Dyslexics with a high neuron density in the left DLPFC of their frontal brain were still able to read well.

Uganda’s Health minister, Dr Jane Aceng, hailed the Israeli government for supporting health services delivery in the country. Dr Aceng spoke while commissioning a diabetes clinic at Kiboga Hospital, which was established with support from Israel.

Researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have linked positive emotions with cancer remission. In laboratory tests, increased levels of the pleasurable neurotransmitter dopamine helped the immune system to reduce tumor size by 50 per cent.

Israeli humanitarian aid organization IsraAID set up a mobile dental clinic for one week in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. The four-person dental team treated many of the 190,000 refugees in the camp, many of whom had never received dental care in their lives.  

Israeli Border Police in the city of Hebron saved the life of a nine-month-old Palestinian Arab baby. Hearing shouts from a house, they found an unconscious baby boy and distraught parents. They administered CPR until an Israeli medical team arrived to restore the baby’s breathing.

I have reported nearly 20 articles about Israeli scientists using immunotherapy to tackle cancer. Now Israel’s Cancer Research Fund and US Cancer Research Institute are partnering to decide which, of 160 Israeli research projects, could make the next big breakthrough.

I reported previously on Israeli startup Sight Diagnostics and its Malaria blood test. Now Sight Diagnostics has launched a “lab-grade” desktop blood count analyzer called OLO, that digitizes blood images into complete blood count (CBC) tests from only a finger prick of blood.

Israel’s Technion scientists have built a tool to help treat patients with immune system diseases. “ImmuneXpresso” scans millions of scientific publications to construct a computerized model of the immune system, showing the interactions between immune cells and the human body, across thousands of diseases.

I’ve reported on the artificial intelligent (AI) image analysis systems developed by Israel’s Zebra Medical. Now Zebra’s technology extends to chest X-rays with “Textray”, that can identify 40 different common clinical findings. Zebra also raised $30 million of funds.