Israel’s Superbug Detective Kit

15 03 2012

A new technology developed by a 91-year-old scientist at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem  is putting Israel way out front in the worldwide fight against antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Prof. Emeritus Nathan Citri

It’s a well-established fact that hospital-borne infections are a top killer in the United States and Europe. Use as much antibacterial hand gel as you like, but no one is totally immune from “superbugs” spawned by the overuse or misuse of antibiotics. People with compromised immune systems, newborns and the elderly are especially easy prey for these microbes.

Prof. Emeritus Nathan Citri’s medical kit targets the problem of identifying various bugs fast enough to save lives and stop an outbreak. Currently, patients can wait as long as five days to get an evidence-based treatment, time during which the infection can spread like wildfire. The kit has all the material necessary to test for the presence of superbugs in a urine or blood sample, and almost immediately provides crucial guidelines on how to treat the infection at hand.

What’s extremely novel about the diagnostic kit is that it also provides information on the type of antibiotic that might be useful against the infection, whether it’s in the lower respiratory tract, urinary tract, intestines or abdomen. Armed with information from this kit, doctors will be able to shave days off the decision-making process, and remove guesswork from the clinical setting.

The kits are made to produce a chemical reaction in the presence of beta-lactamases, an enzyme found in all multi-drug resistant bacteria. If the urine or blood contains a kind of bacteria known to destroy the antibiotics located on a certain part of the array, within minutes a warning color change will tell members of the medical team what they need to know.

Yissum’s (The university’s commercial arm) CEO Yaacov Michlin added: “Drug-resistant gut bacteria present the most alarming, imminent threat to our ability to control infectious diseases. In order to contain its spread, a case of multi-drug resistance should be promptly isolated and treated with the one or two last-resort drugs that may still work. This is an extremely important step in our fight against antibiotic resistance.”

For further reading please click  here

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How Innovative is Your Dentist?

23 02 2012

Israeli company's LiteTouch laser system is becoming a fast favorite of dentists and their patients in the US, Asia and Europe

Going to the dentist is never a picnic, and dentists understand how their patients feel. That’s why they are constantly trying new technologies to make treatment less unpleasant.

Syneron Dental Lasers of Yokneam, Israel, has developed the new LiteTouch dental laser – an innovation that has played a pivotal role in transforming the way practitioners perform dental treatments today.

Just as the mobile phone freed the world from wires, so has the LiteTouch freed dentists from traditional tools as well as bulky optic fibers, making laser dentistry completely portable, says company president Ira Prigat,  ”The LiteTouch system is cost-effective and a step up toward a completely high-tech clinic.” And for dentists who miss the comforting sound of the drill, the LiteTouch vibrates like a drill although fortunately for patients, it doesn’t hurt like a drill since it’s laser-based.

According to numerous studies, the product has proven superior clinical results, with less pain and faster healing. Consequently, patient retention and growth rates are significantly better for dental practices that use LiteTouch, Prigat says.

Last September, Syneron Dental was named one of the 10 fastest-growing companies in Israel in Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50, which lists firms by revenue growth percentage over five years. Prigat expects that growth to continue.

“LiteTouch is finally fulfilling the promise that the industry gave to dentists,” he says, “that a laser can change their dental life.”

For further reading please click  here and here


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Non-Invasive Tool Identifies Alzheimer’s, Depression and ADHD

25 01 2012

ElMindA aims to revolutionize treatment of a number of brain disorders by opening a new window in to the way the brain works

One out of every three people suffer from a brain-related disorder such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ADHD, chronic pain or depression. But because the human brain and the conditions that affect it are so complex, blood tests and imaging are of limited value for diagnosing brain diseases and documenting the effects of treatment.

Even in the 21st century, there’s a lot of guesswork involved, and that means low treatment success rates at high costs.

The Israeli company ElMindA could revolutionize the field by opening a new window into how the brain works. Its trademarked, non-invasive BNA (brain network activation) technology has shown promise in clinical studies.

“Our vision is that every psychiatrist and neurologist in the world will routinely send every patient for BNA tests,” says Dr. Eli Zangvil, ElMindA’s strategic advisor for business development. “Our test would add information and aid in diagnostics in a way no other existing technology can do.”

The procedure is simple and painless. Patients sit at a computer for 15 to 30 minutes, performing a specific task many times while the device maps network activation points in the brain. The repetition allows the device to sift out brain activity unrelated to the task (such as thinking about what to eat for lunch). The result is a three-dimensional image of nerve cell connectivity and synchronization that is highly sensitive, specific and reproducible.

The tool is sensitive enough to show subtle differences in the severity of the condition from one day to another, says Zangvil. It can also optimize drug dosing by monitoring the changes in brain network activities as the drug takes effect.

In much the same way, clinical trials are proving the tool’s value for objectively diagnosing attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which affects up to one in 20 US children.

Diagnosis today is based on a subjective behavioral and clinical evaluation, with a high rate of misdiagnosis and unnecessary drug treatment. BNA mapping would simplify diagnosis by comparing the patient’s scan to a normal and an ADHD profile. It would also play a role in treatment decisions and monitoring.

The company, under CEO Ronen Gadot, has about 18 employees at its Herzliya office and is backed by a world-class scientific advisory board.

For further reading please click here


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Did You Know?…

12 01 2012

 

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As a country, Israel is defined by its collective successes and what follows is but a small sampling of that:

• Ten Israelis have won the Nobel Prize so far.

• Israel is a leader in quality of life. In a comparison conducted by the UN regarding quality of life in 182 countries, Israel ranked 27th, only slightly lower than the UK.

• Israel’s healthcare system is one of the most advanced in the world.

• Israel is a leader in biotechnology development.

• Israeli medical developments are used in the best operating rooms across the world.

• Israeli cows produce the largest amount and highest quality of milk in the world.

• Israel is the only country that entered the 21st century with a net gain in its number of trees.

• Israel is one of the world’s top leaders in agricultural development and fruit cloning.

• A quarter of the population holds a degree – ranking third in the world.

• Israel produces more scientific papers and more patents per capita than any other country.

• Relative to its population, Israel is the largest immigrant- absorbing nation, has more museums per capita and receives more media coverage than any other country in the world.

• Israel has sent emergency delegations around the world to assist foreign governments in times of major disaster including but not limited to Cambodia, Rwanda, Turkey, Argentina, Armenia, Russia, Kenya, New Orleans, Haiti, Japan, Indonesia and Thailand.

• The IDF was the first major medical team to set up camp immediately following the devastating earthquake in Haiti.

• The World Economic Forum has recognized Israel as one of the leading countries in the world in technological innovation.

• The cell phone, disk on key, instant messenger chat, voicemail technology and PillCam were all developed in Israel. The Pentium4 processor was designed and developed in Israel as well.

• Microsoft and Cisco built their largest R&D centers in Israel.

• Apple chose Israel as its first and only R&D center outside the US.

• Israel has the world’s highest percentage of engineers and scientists.

• Israel is a leader in genetics and preventive medicine.

• Israel sends hundreds of missions to developing countries worldwide.

• Israeli agricultural experts introduced drip-irrigation technology, saving water in arid regions.

• An Israeli company recently discovered a way to eradicate the use of pesticides for pest control by using edible oil instead.

• A simple, inexpensive Israeli solution for storing staples is helping Africans, South Americans and Asians survive food shortages.

• Except for the US and Canada, Israel has the most traded companies on Wall Street than any other country.

• Israel is a leader in coexistence programs that bring together Arabs and Jews.

• Israel has an incredible array of institutions that focus on charitable outreach and offering help to the needy.

• Israel is unique in terms of its size, location and diversity of climate and wildlife.

• Jerusalem’s Biblical Zoo is involved in worldwide breeding efforts and to reintroduce animals to their natural habitats.

• Israel is the only place where biblical history really comes alive.

• While far from perfect, the Knesset is an anomaly in the Middle East. Its makeup of Arabs and Jews, Secular and Orthodox and men and women makes Israel a unique liberal democracy – in fact the only one in the Middle East.

• Israel’s military prowess and might is world renowned. It is a leading force in battlefield technology, counterterrorism, combat skills, intelligence gathering and air superiority. The Mossad is likely the world’s top intelligence agency, unsurpassed in its ability to gather information from around the globe.

For all these reasons and more, it is important to recognize and appreciate that with all its problems, Israel is a great country.

Thank you Jpost for the article.


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Israel – a Leader in Cardiology Innovation

8 12 2011

Carto™ RMT - Electroanatomical Navigation System by Biosense Webster

The “Innovations in Cardiovascular Interventions” (ICI) conference that took place this week in Tel Aviv is one of the largest international conferences in the field of cardiovascular intervention. Rambam Health Care Campus director general Prof. Rafael Beyar and Hadassah Medical Center Ein Kerem Heart Institute director Prof. Chaim Lotan who co-chaired the conference, spoke about the latest trends in cardiovascular intervention.

Lotan: “Israel is a world power in innovation – the top in terms of patents per capita, and first in terms of start up companies. In all of Silicon Valley there are 700 start ups. In Israel, there are 1,000 and only 7 million people – about the same amount as in Silicon Valley.”

Israel is a leader in cardiology innovation. Stents, heart valves that are inserted by catheters, devices to navigate in the heart, innovative pace makers – Israelis have significantly contributed to all of these important recent innovations in the cardiology device industry.

The latest popular products are valves. The heart has four valves that control the direction of blood flow, which wear out with age. Synthetic valves that can be implanted using catheters and without surgery are currently being marketed.

The valve developed by Israeli company Percutaneous Valve Technologies, Inc. (PVT), which was acquired by US Edwards Lifesciences LLC, is one of the leading products. “This is a true life-prolonging product, and there are very few new products like it,” Beyar says.

Beyar is very enthusiastic about the electrophysiology technology developed by Biosense, which was founded by Prof. Shlomo Ben-Haim, and in which Beyar himself was involved before it was sold to Johnson & Johnson for $550 million. The company’s R&D center is located in Israel and employs a few hundred people. The company develops products that can map the heart from inside, can navigate inside it, and can also carry out the ablation of specific points – in order to improve heart function. “This is currently one of Johnson & Johnson’s strongest businesses,” Beyar says.” Biosense products can be found in every hospital around the world. I ask them if they know that this product was developed in Haifa, and no one does.”

Lotan believes that significant trends in cardiology innovations are no longer based solely on products. “The market is changing; large companies no longer rely solely on US and European markets as they used to. Large markets have expanded in the Far East and in South America. Products for these locations are less complicated, but are aimed at a larger target population.”

The distant future of cardiology will probably involve stem cell technology. “There is a lot of know-how about this field in Israel,” Beyar says. “Initial trials show that heart function can be slightly improved, but we still have a long way to go.”

For further reading please click here


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Breakthrough: Israel is Developing Cancer Vaccine

17 11 2011

Vaxil’s groundbreaking therapeutic vaccine, developed in Israel, could keep about 90 percent of cancers from coming back

In a breakthrough development, the Israeli company Vaxil BioTherapeutics has formulated a therapeutic cancer vaccine, now in clinical trials at Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem. If all goes well, the vaccine could be available about six years down the road, to administer on a regular basis not only to help treat cancer but in order to keep the disease from recurring.

The vaccine is being tested against a type of blood cancer called multiple myeloma. If the substance works as hoped — and it looks like all arrows are pointing that way — its platform technology VaxHit could be applied to 90 percent of all known cancers, including prostate and breast cancer, solid and non-solid tumors.

“In cancer, the body knows something is not quite right but the immune system doesn’t know how to protect itself against the tumor like it does against an infection or virus. This is because cancer cells are the body’s own cells gone wrong,” says Julian Levy, the company’s CFO. “Coupled with that, a cancer patient has a depressed immune system, caused both by the illness and by the treatment.”

The trick is to activate a compromised immune system to mobilize against the threat.

“It’s a really big thing,” says Levy, a biotechnology entrepreneur who was formerly CEO for Biokine Therapeutics. “If you give chemo, apart from the really nasty side effects, what often happens is that cancer becomes immune [to it]. The tumor likes to mutate and develops an ability to hide from the treatment. Our vaccines are also designed to overcome that problem.”

For cancers in an advanced stage, treatments like chemo or surgery to remove a large tumor will still be needed, but if the cancer can be brought down to scale, the body is then able to deal with it, Levy explains. ImMucin is foreseen as a long-term strategy — a shot every few months, with no side effects — to stop the cancer from reoccurring after initial treatments, by ensuring that the patient’s own immune system keeps it under control.

For more info about this incredible vaccine, visit Vaxil at www.vaxilbio.com

Thank you uwi for the story.


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When a Clown is Better Than Aspirin

10 11 2011

Photo courtesy of Shaare Zedek Medical Center. “Dr. Sababa” clowning with kids at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem

Groucho Marx once said: “A clown is like an aspirin, only it works twice as fast.”

Can that notion be proven scientifically? The question was among those pondered at an October conference in Israel that drew participants from many countries.

Coinciding with the 10th anniversary of Israel’s internationally renowned Dream Doctors therapeutic clowning program, the congress gave visitors a chance to watch clowns in action at Jerusalem hospitals and learn about efforts to promote medical clowning as a standardized, research-backed healthcare discipline.

Israel leads the world in this regard, says Michael Christensen, founder of New York’s Big Apple Circus and its Clown Care Unit. He was among presenters at the conference, where 100 Israelis met 100 counterparts from abroad.

“I am totally and utterly inspired by the way Dream Doctors have integrated themselves into the medical profession in Israel,” says Christensen. He trained theater students at Tel Aviv University to be medical clowns at Schneider Children’s Hospital in Tel Aviv 22 years ago.

Dr. Yaacov Gozal, associate professor of anesthesiology at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center, launched a study to see if professional clowns could calm children before outpatient surgical procedures as effectively as bitter-tasting oral sedative syrup. “With less stress, children need less pain medication and can be discharged sooner,” he said.

Gozal’s staff divided the 40 subjects healthy Israeli kids ages 2 to 11  into two groups. Children in the first group each interacted with a Dream Doctor for 15 minutes prior to being anesthetized, while the second group got the sedative. They found that the children’s levels of blood cortisol (a stress-induced hormone) just before surgery were equal in both groups, and that parents felt greater satisfaction with the experience when their child had received clown therapy.

Dream Doctors founder and chairman Yaacov Shriqui said that 90 Dream Doctors are now working in 22 Israeli healthcare facilities, mainly with children.

“I find it fascinating that Israel has succeeded in legitimizing medical clowning as a profession while America has failed to do that,” says Amy Korenvaes. She and her husband, Harlan, run a foundation that funds the fledgling Funnyatrics Clown Program at Children’s Medical Center in Dallas, Texas.

“I am hoping to take a lesson home from the model the Israelis created. We have to convince doctors that clown therapy is time efficient, financially efficient and healing.”

“We haven’t taken the leap to evidence-based medicine that they have here,” agrees Funnyatrics team leader Tiffany Riley. “Now we can go back and say, ‘Look at how far ahead this country is.’ In this field, we have some things to learn.”

For further reading please click here

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Tasty Fish Oil?

3 11 2011

Nothing fishy lurking here – just unusually healthful candy

Omega 3 supplements provide one of the “good” fatty acids nutritionists say can help prevent heart disease and arthritis, while playing an essential role in healthy brain development and growth.

But there are a few problems with most Omega 3 capsules. First of all, they smell like fish. Because the supplement is derived from cold-water fish, it’s not uncommon to taste fishy burps throughout the day after ingesting the oil capsule, roughly the size of an earplug. The capsules are hard for children to swallow and completely unsuitable for vegans.

While there are alternative Omega 3 oils on health-food store shelves, a new tasteless and odorless vegetarian variety from Israeli food supplement company LycoRed is designed to be used in baked goods and candies because it is able to survive heating. The company has completed successful trials of its supplement in chocolates, crackers and bread.

LycoRed, whose main business is natural nutritional supplements and colorants, launched the new algae-derived Lyc-O-Mega 10 AL late last year and it is now available worldwide.

Dr. Dorit Rozner, R&D manager at LycoRed: “The advantages of Omega 3 to our health are well known, but most of us are challenged to get enough in our diets, especially for children, for whom taking capsules is difficult.”

“As adding Omega 3 directly to foods normally within our diets results in ‘fishy’ tasting products, we saw an opportunity to utilize our unique microencapsulation technology,” says Rozner. “The resulting product, Lyc-O-Mega 10 AL, allows the confectionery and bakery industry to create great-tasting products and deliver on DHA.”

LycoRed has production facilities in Israel, Europe and the United States, and it supplies the food, beverage and cosmetics industries worldwide. The company also produces a food supplement extracted from tomatoes, LycoMato, which is believed to prevent the effects of sun damage from within the body by fighting free radicals before they do damage.

For further reading please click here.


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Webcam to Computer Users: Sit Up Straight!

31 08 2011

Stop slouching and check this out: Researchers have developed a way for desktop webcams to keep an eye on office workers’ posture while they are using computers.

A multidisciplinary team from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel has described their work, designed to cut down on musculoskeletal disorders, in the journal Applied Ergonomics.

The Ben-Gurion study involved 60 office workers, who were shown proper sitting posture and then given frequent feedback while working via webcam images comparing proper posture vs. the worker’s current sitting position. The office training resulted in improved posture, but the webcam method involving software installed on workers’ machines resulted in more sustained improvement. Older workers and women proved most responsive to the webcam method.

The researchers recommended that employers implement such a photo-based reinforcement system to help employees and cut down on health issues that can cost employers big insurance bucks.

The research team included representatives from the school’s information systems engineering, women’s health, occupational health, orthopedic surgery departments. Israel’s Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor funded the study.

Source: networkworld


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A “Morning After Pill” For Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

4 08 2011

The chemical structure of cortisol

Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, is rare among anxiety disorders in that  its origins can be pinpointed not only based on genetic predisposition but to a specific moment in time. This severe anxiety disorder occurs following exposure to an event of significant psychological trauma. That event could be anything from a car crash to witnessing a terrorist attack. The disease is more common than you might think, with an estimated 7.8 percent of Americans experiencing PTSD at some point in their lives, according to the Nebraska Department of Veterans Affairs. Women are about twice as likely as men to suffer from PTSD, but one group, men and women, who have an extremely high disposition to developing post-traumatic stress disorder are military veterans. A shocking 30 percent of men and women who have served in war zones are believed to have suffered from PTSD.

While most are not diagnosed with PTSD until at least a month after the initial event (symptoms include flashbacks or nightmares, and avoidance of stimuli linked to trauma), Israeli researchers believe that it may be possible to prevent the onset of PTSD with a “morning after pill.”

In a study involving individuals who had been involved in traffic accidents, Israeli researchers found that administering a hormone soon after the event reduced the risk of developing PTSD by 80 percent. The project was led by Professor  Joseph Zohar, head of the psychiatry department at Sheba Medical Center, and Tel Hashomer, chairman of the Israeli Consortium on PTSD.

“Most psychiatric conditions, such as depression or even schizophrenia, develop gradually and not at a specific point in time, but PTSD appears in response to a specific traumatic event,” explained Zohar.

Conservative approaches to treating victims of psychological trauma usually include administering tranquilizers, like Valium. The goal of this is to relax the victim. However, recent research has shown that this might be doing more harm than good. By delaying the release of cortisol in the body, tranquilizers might be reducing the body’s ability to fight the onset of PTSD. American medial organizations have since discouraged this line of treatment.

One human trial involved 24 participants who had shown high stress levels after being admitted to hospitals following car accidents. Half were given a 100 milligram injection of cortisol, and subsequently, only one showed signs of PTSD, and after three months, none showed signs. The control group, which were administered a placebo, had three cases of PTSD.

Time is key, with cortisol treatments believed to only be effective during the first 6 hours after exposure to psychological trauma. If  further research confirms the cortisol hypothesis, this could have a tremendous impact on millions, whether they be victims of rape or assault, or suffered any other psychological trauma.

“The work raises the possibility in the future of developing a rapid treatment that could be given to people, such as combat soldiers, who have been exposed to traumatic events. There is a need for an agent that could be administered in the field and that does not impair motor responses or performance and that does not have a soporific effect – and cortisone meets these requirements,” Zohar said.

The results of the trial will be published in the December issue of the European journal Neuropsychopharmacology.

For further reading please click here


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