Israel Active

(thanks to Israel21c) MDWave from Holon-based Aerotel is a portable medical device that claims to use low electromagnetic frequencies to heal. Clinical trials are underway for patients with chronic musculoskeletal pains and those with chest pains due to blocked blood vessels.

Dr. Hossam Haick of the Israel Technion has just finished analysing the results of breath tests of patients with a suspected tumour. The study of 74 Colorado patients correctly identified 53 malignant tumours and 19 benign ones. The test even highlighted the most effective treatment options.

Israel’s Mazor Robotics has just sold its 18th Renaissance robotic spinal surgical guidance system in the US – this time to the Parker Adventist Hospital in Denver. Parker is a Blue Distinction Center for Spine Surgery, so the latest sale is especially prestigious.

Leading scientists from academia and industry gathered at the US-Israel Neurotechnology and Neuroscience Conference in Washington to showcase the latest research and cutting edge technologies in the US and Israel for investigating brain function and brain disorders.

BrainGames- Israel monitors a child’s brainwaves whilst they play a computer game or watch a film. If the child’s attention begins to wander, the game or film changes, stops or slows. Focussing the mind continues the action / activity and thus conditions the child’s brain.

(Thanks to Nocamels.) Ladostigil, from Israel’s Avraham Pharmaceuticals, relieves behavioural and psychological symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. In lab animals, the medication also slows the progression of symptoms and prolongs life. Results of human trials are due end 2012.

The organisation Israel Brain Technologies (IBT) is offering a $1 million to anyone who can come up with a breakthrough brain technology, one that will make life better for everyone. It is aptly named the Global B.R.A.I.N. (Breakthrough Research And Innovation in Neurotechnology) Prize.

A team of researchers at Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba has discovered that Montelukast, an anti-inflammatory drug used for the treatment of asthma, helped open the closed airways caused by enlarged tonsils. It is an alternative to a major surgical operation for children.

Placental eXpanded (PLX) cell treatment from Israel’s Pluristem has saved the life of a 45-year-old man who suffered from bone marrow failure after undergoing chemotherapy and a bone-marrow transplant, due to leukemia. There were no side effects and the man has now been discharged from Hadassah medical centre in Jerusalem.

A Hebrew University researcher has uncovered a method of using a synthetic, anti-inflammatory and anti-allergic family of drugs to combat a variety of illnesses, while avoiding detrimental side effects. This is a different story to the anti-allergy discovery published on 28th Aug.