Israel Active

Weizmann Institute of Science, Drs. Maya Schuldiner and Jacob Hanna, are among 40 world-leading scientists in their field that have been selected by the prestigious journal Cell for their “40 under 40” list. Dr Hanna grew up in the Arab town Rameh.

The MarginProbe cancer scanner developed by Israel’s Dune Medical has successfully performed 1000 tumor tests since it was launched in 2013. MarginProbe confirms that the entire malignant tumor has been removed, before the surgeon finishes the operation.

At the Toronto summit, “Saving Every Woman, Every Child Within Arm’s Reach,” Israel’s Dr. “Miki” Karplus described how Israeli doctors in Ghana get round the lack of expensive incubators. Also having only the mother handle the baby reduces infections.

Israel’s D-Pharm has obtained fast track status from the China's Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) for its epilepsy treatment, DP-VPA. D-Pharm is jointly developing the treatment in China with its local partner, Jiangsu NHWA. DP-VPA has completed a first Phase II clinical trial.

Israel, France and Germany are the first countries to adopt the new German Biotronik Etrinsa HF-T pacemaker, which sends text messages to doctors about the status of the patient. Surgeons implanted the device into an Israeli patient at Ashkelon’s Barzilai hospital.

Israeli biotech Intec has announced that its Accordion Levodopa treatment for Parkinson’s disease has met all its safety trial endpoints. Phase 3 trials on Parkinson’s sufferers can now commence.

(Thanks to NoCamels.com) Dr Yehuda Assaraf of Israel’s Technion has developed the “Pharmacological Trojan horse” strategy to evade cancer cells’ resistance to chemotherapy. Cancer’s “Achilles heel” is light, which destroys the cell membrane allowing anti-cancer enzymes to enter.

Two Israeli physicians from Haifa’s Rambam Medical center, Dr. Omri Emodi and Dr. Zach Sharony, were part of a 40-person Operation Smile delegation to Ethiopia. From dawn to dusk they performed 91 operations in 5 days to repair cleft lips and pallets and also trained local staff.

Israel’s BrainStorm reported positive interim results of Phase IIa ALS trials of its “NurOwn” stem cell therapy. 71% of patients were in decline before treatment but after treatment 63% were either stabilized or had improved neurological function.

Israeli start-up MobileOCT has won the 2014 Vodafone Americas Foundation Wireless Innovation Project for its program to help residents of the US-Mexican border area detect cervical cancer. MobileOCT’s technology uses mobile phones with added lenses.