Israel Active

The normally anti-Israel UK TV Channel4 aired a rare positive feature about Mark Lewis and the trial stem cell treatment he received for Multiple Sclerosis at Israel’s Hadassah hospital.

Women in Israel have 3.1 children on average, the most in the OECD. Second is Mexico with 2.2 children and the OECD average is below two. In 2016, the percentage of miscarriages was less than the OECD average and C-sections averaged 17.8% compared to the OECD 27%.

Royal Engineer Chris Baker was paralyzed in Iraq, but was able to stand during for the national anthem at London’s Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday, thanks to his Israeli-developed ReWalk exoskeleton.

Israeli startup CorNeat Vision has completed the design and development stage of its artificial cornea implant. The CorNeat KPro is produced using nanoscale chemical engineering that stimulates cellular growth. CorNeat is aiming for its first implantation in humans by mid-2018.

Israel Medical Association Chairman Professor Leonid Eidelman has been elected President of the World Medical Association (WMA), an umbrella body representing national medical associations with more than nine million members around the world.

Scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute have engineered new proteins, e.g. antibodies or enzymes, that do not exist in nature.  They are designed to have specific properties and can usher in a new age of custom-designed medical treatments.

Two-year-old Elchanan wandered off from his family’s succah and fell into a nearby pond.  When United Hatzalah EMT volunteers arrived, Elchanan was clinically dead. After on-site and hospital CPR, Elchanan made a full recovery and danced at his Sukkot concert 5 days later.

Swiss-based life sciences company Lonza is establishing a Research and Development center in Haifa. The Lonza Collaborative Innovation Center will leverage Israel's scientific strength in areas such as engineering, software and cell and molecular biology.

Israel has seen a 50% decrease in mortality rates from heart disease over the past 15 years and is one of the leading Western countries in heart disease detection, prevention and treatment. In 2000, 20% of patients died one month after their first heart attack. In 2016 it was just 7.5%.

Geordi La Forge’s visor in the Star Trek science fiction series may soon be a reality. Israel’s Augmedics is developing the VIZOR - an Augmented Reality (AR) headset that shows surgeons an X ray-like visualization of the patient. Augmedics has just raised $8.3 million of funding.