Pioneers in research that has led to better health and medicine world-wide, Weizmann has a long list of achievements.
Mysterious macrophages, found to rapidly digest dying B cells, may hold clues to future treatments of autoimmune disorders new Weizmann research shows. Parents tell their children to eat all the food on their plate, down to the last crumb. Certain cells within our...
A South African plant called a woolly umbrella is completely unrelated to the cannabis plant, yet it makes a slew of the active compounds found in cannabis – cannabinoids – including some that may have new medical uses. In a study just published in Nature Plants,...
To get life-giving oxygen into every cell, the human body produces two to three million oxygen-carrying red blood cells, or erythrocytes, each second – about one-quarter of all the new cells that are produced in the body at any one time. This process is controlled by...
Sometimes anticancer antibodies press on the gas and the brakes at the same time. New research from the Weizmann Institute of Research in Israel might help them accelerate better. When driving, putting a foot on the gas or brake pedal controls the car’s speed. This...
When a threat is looming and an escape route is open, one would expect any animal to flee imminent danger. But when microscopic worms faced a threatening signal in a lab at the Weizmann Institute of Science, only the females fled right away. The males stayed put until...
We are used to thinking of the immune system as a separate entity, almost a distinct organ, but the truth is much more complicated. Breakthroughs in recent years – some resulting from research performed in Professor Rotem Sorek’s lab at the Weizmann Institute of...
Cancer tumours contain multiple species of fungi that differ per tumour type, according to a large study led by researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science and the University of California, San Diego. The study, published today in Cell, potentially has...
Blood tests – simple, noninvasive and economically feasible – promise to become the next major milestone in cancer diagnosis. However, most of these tests, dubbed liquid biopsies, are currently not reliable enough for widespread use. A new, multi-parameter approach...
Even during routine tasks such as a daily stroll, our brain needs to shift gears, switching from navigating the city to jumping out of the way of a bike or to crossing the street to greet a friend. These switches pose a challenge: How does the brain’s circuits deal...
Non-nutritive sweeteners – also known as sugar substitutes or artificial sweeteners – are supposed to deliver all the sweetness of sugar without the calories. But a controlled trial conducted by Weizmann Institute of Science researchers, published this week in Cell,...
The myriads of microbes in our gut, collectively termed the microbiome, are considered important to our health, but they can also harbour bacteria that contribute to inflammatory bowel disease or other disorders. Currently, however, it is impossible to target such...
An egg meets a sperm – that’s a necessary first step in life’s beginnings, and it’s also a common first step in embryonic development research. But in a Weizmann Institute of Science study published today in Cell, researchers have grown synthetic embryo models of mice...
Of all the fungi that live in the human body, the most infamous is probably the yeast Candida. This distant cousin of baker’s yeast is notorious for causing various types of thrush that can be a major nuisance, but it can also lead to an invasive infection that may,...
Weizmann Institute of Science researchers have found that people may have a tendency to form friendships with individuals who have a similar body odour. The researchers were even able to predict the quality of social interactions between complete strangers by first...
Ketamine, a well-known anaesthetic used in smaller doses as a party drug, was hailed as a “new hope for depression” in a Time magazine cover story in 2017. Two years later, the arrival of the first ketamine-based antidepressant – the nasal spray esketamine, made by...
Our family origins tend to shape our future in many ways. A Weizmann Institute of Science study, published in Nature, found that the same holds true for blood vessels. The researchers discovered blood vessels forming from unexpected progenitors and went on to show...
Supporting actors sometimes steal the show, and in a new study published this week in Cell, researchers, headed by Professor Ido Amit at the Weizmann Institute of Science, showed that supporting cells called fibroblasts – long viewed as uniform background players –...
Genetic mutations linked to a disease often spell bad news. Mutations in over 25 genes, for example, are associated with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and they all increase the risk of developing this incurable disorder. Now, a research team headed by Professor...
Immunotherapies for cancer rely on recruiting the patient’s immune system, but they still fall far short of tapping into the entire arsenal of the body’s natural defences. In fact, most such therapies draw on one type of immune defines: the ability of T cells to...
Even fans of black-and-white film cannot deny that colour brought new life to photography and motion pictures – but when it comes to learning what happens inside the body, there’s no substitute for colour. For example, were it possible to map out real-time gene...
Today, people suspected of having inflammatory bowel disease are often required to undergo a colonoscopy, an invasive procedure performed under anaesthesia. A new method developed at the Weizmann Institute of Science in collaboration with the Sheba Medical Center at...
One day the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Professor Eldad Tzahor peered into his lab’s microscope and saw steak. As part of Tzahor’s research into repairing muscle tissue, Dr Tamar Eigler, a postdoctoral fellow in his lab had been experimenting with cultured muscle...
In the not-so-distant past, the discovery of a supernova – an exploding star – was considered a rare occasion. For example, when Professor Avishay Gal-Yam of the Weizmann Institute’s Particle Physics and Astrophysics Department and Dean of Weizmann’s Physics Faculty,...
Cigarette smoking, practiced by over a billion people worldwide, is considered a leading cause of disease, accounting for over six million deaths each year. Many people don’t quit smoking, despite expressing a desire to do so, because they are concerned about the...