Israel Active

A report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development ranked Israel's mortality rate for cardiovascular disease (less than 200 per 100,000 population) the fourth-lowest among OECD nations. Japan was the lowest, followed by France and South Korea.

I reported previously on Israel’s MyMDBand - a wristband with a QR code that gives paramedics access to vital patient data. Here now are two latest videos about the exciting product.

Tel Aviv University Professor Udi Qimron has published his research about bacterial viruses (phages) that attack bacteria. The phages transfer "edited" DNA into resistant bacteria to kill off resistant strains and make others more sensitive to antibiotics. Clinical tests will begin soon.

Canada’s Finance Minister Joe Oliver announced a seven-year, $35-million program will fund up to 30 joint Canadian-Israeli research projects. The first projects will focus on neuroscience, with up to six $1 million grants per year for up to three years.

Top scientists from the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR), the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer are working together on the Alex U. Soyka Pancreatic Cancer Research Project. The OICR is giving $4.6 million to the project.

Israel Technion’s Professor Hossam Haick has won a Gates Foundation award to help development of a sensing plaster that can detect tuberculosis biomarkers on the skin. Professor Haick is already famous for his nanotech breath analyzer that detects cancer.

Israel’s BiondVax has received FDA approval of its application to proceed with clinical trials of its universal Multimeric-001 flu vaccine (M-001).

The Israeli ApiFix system has now been used to correct scoliosis (deformed spines) in 50 adolescents since the minimally invasive system was approved for marketing in Europe in 2013.

The CuPID project, co-directed by Tel Aviv University’s Dr. Anat Mirelman, has developed a smartphone app to help Parkinson’s sufferers who have a common symptom called Freezing of Gait (FoG). The CuPID app uses sensors on the shoes and alerts the wearer audibly, if they are likely to fall.

Israeli biotech Nutrinia develops treatments for intestinal failure in preterms, infants and adults. Its NTRA-9620 treatment has just been granted orphan status by the US FDA.