Israel Active

(Thanks to Israel21c) A study initiated by Israeli brain science researcher and Bar Ilan University professor, Michal Ben-Shachar has identified complex changes in brain connections, as children learn how to read.

Dr Sarit Sivan, from Israel’s Technion, won the prize in the 'Innovation and Entrepreneurship' category. She has developed an innovative treatment for lower back pain resulting from the degeneration of discs in the spinal column.

Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem performed the first operation of its kind on liver cancer sufferer Louis Saznovsky. ‘Irreversible electroporation’ – a direct flow of high-voltage electrical currents – was applied to the malignant tumour, leaving only a few scars where the tumour once was. Since Hadassah’s first use of the new method, more than 200 such operations have been performed worldwide.

World Diabetes Day was marked in Israel by the announcement that leg catheterisations performed at Haifa’s Rambam hospital over the last two years have prevented 521 diabetics from having amputations. The procedure is available in only a few medical centers in the world.

Israeli biotech Kamada announced positive results in pre-clinical trials of its Alpha-1 Antitrypsin (AAT) protein. AAT has potential for treating bacterial lung infections and also to prevent implant rejection. AAT is the active ingredient in Kamada’s Glassia , used to treat emphysema.

Cannabis is administered without much controversy to over 10,000 Israeli patients, among them aging Holocaust survivors who struggle to cope with disease. Marijuana is illegal in Israel, but medical use has been permitted since the early nineties for cancer patients and those with pain-related illnesses such as Parkinson's, Multiple Sclerosis, and even post-traumatic stress disorder.

Israeli Medical Device Innovations on display at Medica 2012 in Dusseldorf included Motorika’s ReoTherapy. Stroke victims retrain their brains using this unique robotic rehabilitation device, which has been achieving amazing results in recovering limb mobility.

(Thanks to Israel21c) About 125,000 people die each year because they failed to take their medication correctly. Israel’s Vaica has a programmable “smart” pillbox called SimpleMed that sends flashing light and sound reminders when a pill needs to be taken, and can alert a call center when a pill is skipped.

Israel’s Vitalgo Systems’ first product is the state-of-the-art Total Lift Bed™ which is the only hospital-grade bed in the world that can elevate someone safely from a lying to a fully standing position – with zero lifting on the part of the caregiver. (The youtube is a bit unusual.)

Weizmann researchers have discovered that the body’s bone marrow is home to stem cells that can be transformed into different types of mature blood immune cells to deal with a crisis. The level of detail within the discovery, however, will eventually lead to better medical treatments.