Israel Active

The Federation of European Neuroscience Societies awarded the EDAB-FENS Brain Awareness Week Excellence Award for 2016 to The Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.  FENS President Prof. Monica di Luca praised the HUJ for the imaginative ways it combines neuroscience research with the arts.

Dr. Pinchas Tsukerman of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has won a prestigious Kaye Innovation Award for developing novel monoclonal antibodies that can boost the immune system’s ability to destroy tumors.

The weekly Lego Workshop is an important part of Israeli charity Ezer Mizion’s extensive cancer support services for cancer patients (children and adults) and their families.  It is held at Ezer Mizion’s “Oranit” cancer patient guest home - a home away for home during outpatient treatment.  Also Ezer Mizion’s “Good Morning” visual art workshop that relieves some of the trauma from mothers with cancer.

Many sufferers from cancer, stroke, cerebral palsy and Parkinson’s cannot take food orally.  Israel’s Fidmi Medical is developing an innovative enteral feeding device that is secure, reliable, painless and discreet.  It is extremely unlikely to get clogged up or be dislodged by (potentially fatal) accident.

Human trials of OpRegen from Israeli biotech Cell Cure at Hadassah Medical Center are proceeding well.  This unique stem cell therapy aims to stop progression of the dry form of Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) that leads to blindness.

Israeli TV news about the innovative treatment from Israel’s Oramed that will make life better for many of the 400 million people with diabetes.

Israeli startup SpacePharma is working with Bioscience engineering faculty and students at SUNY Polytechnic Institute in a $1.75 million research project that will use research in space to find new cancer cures.  They will launch a “lab-on-a-chip” with cancer cells inside in a micro satellite that will orbit the earth, studying how cancer cells behave in zero gravity and micro gravity environments.

The UK’s Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health has awarded an Honorary Fellowship to Professor. Eitan Kerem, head of the Division of Pediatrics at the Hadassah Medical Center and cystic fibrosis specialist. He was praised especially for his work training Palestinian Arab pediatricians in his cystic fibrosis clinic, and treating Palestinian Arab children.

Researchers at Israel’s Technion Institute have developed a nanomedicine technology for the targeted treatment of gastric tumors.  The platform combines anti-cancer and anti-resistance compounds, packaged orally in beta-casein – a constituent of mother’s milk.

A Palestinian Arab baby without a pulse was brought to where IDF soldiers were stationed and they immediately began emergency treatment. They were able to restore the baby’s breathing before the Red Crescent arrived to take him to hospital. The baby is now in stable condition.