Israel Active

Surgeons at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center successfully carried out the first ever transplant between two living HIV carriers. A woman donated a kidney to her husband, who has since returned to work. The main problem was to prevent rejection by the man’s compromised immune system.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Pillcam SB 3 – Given Imaging’s latest internal intestine camera – for monitoring sufferers of Crohn’s disease and other intestinal problems. Its use has already changed the treatment of 62 percent of Crohn’s patients.

(Thanks to Atid-EDI) The revolutionary Ventritek105 device from Tel Aviv’s Biosan Medical treats Intra Ventricular Hemorrhage (IVH), which has a 50% average death rate. More than 90% of the study patients treated with Ventritek105 were alive and well at the 30-day follow-up.

Another article on Weizmann Institute’s use of two diverse antibodies to target aggressive hereditary breast cancer.

Several subscribers have sent me this link to Eli Beer who started United Hatzalah and its lifesaving ambu-cycles. The paramedics on two-wheels get to emergencies in 3 minutes, saving lives before an ambulance can fight through traffic. Watch this inspiring story of Chutzpah and co-existence.

Dr Cyril Sherer is still treating patients in Jerusalem 70 years after graduating in London. He and his wife spent 13 years in New Zealand and made Aliya to Israel in 1961. His story reads like a history of modern medicine.

(Thanks to Israel21c) Bar-Ilan Professor Zeev Zalevsky has invented a bionic contact lens that receives electrical signals and transmits the encoded image to the wearer’s cornea. The image gets translated into a tactile sensation that can be interpreted visually.

(Thanks to Israel21c) Israel’s EyeYon Medical has two solutions for corneal edema, which affects an additional two million patients every year. First, Hyper CL is a patented contact lens that uses osmosis to release fluid build-up. Then a DSPEK polymer film implant prevents the formation of fluid.

Until now, infants’ inhalation masks have been miniature versions of adult ones – ill-fitting and unable to deliver medicine effectively. Now Israel’s Technion has made an infant-specific inhalation mask that even allows a pacifier to be stuck in the child’s mouth while he/she is wearing the mask.

(Thanks to Israel21c) Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have discovered that flu viruses (including deadly strains) use the protein neuraminidase to disable the body’s natural killer (NK) cells. They managed to inhibit the protein and thus bolster the NK cells ability to fight the viruses.