Israel Active

In 2012, MASHAV - Israel Foreign Ministry’s agency for international development cooperation donated the first-ever dialysis unit to Sierra Leone.  Due to the Ebola outbreak, the African country’s first dialysis treatment took place on Dec 15 this year, and a life was saved.

Two thirds of sufferers of blood loss trauma experience hypothermia.  Blood and fluids used in transfusions must be warmed from storage temperatures (4 degrees C) to body heat (37 degrees C). Israeli startup QinFlow’s Warrior portable system does just that – faster than any alternative system.  It recently received US FDA approval.

Israel’s PerfAction Technologies has developed EnerJet (Airgent in the US) - a non-thermal, no-needle, high-pressure jet stream to introduce any kind of healing agent or skin-enhancement material. It removes acne scars, surgical scars etc.  Available in 22 countries including Indonesia and Malaysia.

Yet another example. The BBC radio broadcast itself didn’t mention that the Exablate Neuro ultrasound machine for treating tremor is produced by Israel’s Insightec.  They then buried that fact deep in their report on their website.

Israel inaugurated the Technion Integrated Cancer Center (TICC) in Haifa.  The center is a first-of-its kind hub for global cancer research, which will expedite the discovery of new diagnostic tools and treatments through a collaborative “bench-to-bedside” approach.

In what may be the largest purchase of defibrillators ever made in Israel, volunteer emergency medical services (EMS) organization United Hatzalah recently purchased 1,000 defibrillators - one for each of its volunteers.  The aim is that no one in Israel will die from a treatable cardiac arrest.

Israel’s Dr. Gilad Evrony was awarded the Eppendorf and Science Prize for Neurobiology by Science magazine and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  Dr Evrony sequences and analyzes the genomes of individual brain cells to detect mutations.

I reported previously that the US FDA approved the P-ARTIS innovative upright CT proton scanner from Israel’s P-Cure. Now the Northwestern Medicine Chicago Proton Center will be the first in the US to use the P-Cure scanner for patients being treated for lung cancer.

More than half a million viewers have been watching live broadcasts on Facebook of Israeli brain surgeons at Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba removing a benign tumor. The purpose was to promote the work at the new brain center.

Israel Technion researchers have found that the ubiquitin enzyme RNF4 binds to oncogenic proteins to give cancer cells longer lives.  Increased levels of RNF4 have been found in colon and breast cancer patients.  Removing or inhibiting RNF4 leads to the death of cancer cells.