Weizmann Wonder Wander

On February 12, the Weizmann Institute will host a ceremony at which Institute Professor Michael Sela will become the first non-German to receive the Harnack Medal, the Max Planck Society's highest award. The medal will be presented to him by Prof. Hans F. Zacher, President of the Max Planck Society. It was named for Adolf von Harnack, the first President of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, the Max Planck Society's predecessor, and is bestowed for outstanding contributions to the advancement of science and the humanities.

Diplomatic contacts with various Arab nations no longer sound like science fiction to Israelis, but professional exchanges with people in some of these countries still have the flavor of an adventure. Members of a Weizmann Institute delegation traveling recently to a scientific conference in the Moroccan town of Essaouira (Mogador) were apprehensive. After all, they were going to a country that only a year before had established official ties with Israel.

This week, two scientists from Israel's Weizmann Institute were honored for an achievement that bears on the lives of many people throughout the world. Prof. Ruth Arnon and Dr. Dvora Teitelbaum received Women of Distinction Awards from Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, for three decades of pioneering scientific research that led to a new drug for multiple sclerosis.

Yaakov Naan is about to join the Weizmann Institute as Vice President for Finance and Administration. He will take office on February 1, 1996, replacing David Schlachet, who is leaving to engage in private business after having served in this capacity for five years. Born in Israel in 1942, Naan is married, has three daughters and lives in Netanya. He has a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology (1966), and an M.Sc. in Business Administration from the Hebrew University (1970).

New developments in solid state physics will be discussed this week (January 8-12) at the Arkady Aronov Memorial Symposium to be held in Zichron Ya'akov, near Haifa, under the aegis of the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Heraeus Foundation, Germany. Some 140 invited participants from 15 countries, including France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Russia and the United States, will dwell upon scientific subjects that were in the domain of interests of the late Prof. Aronov, a world- famous physicist.

A gene responsible for the production of an allergy-blocking protein has been discovered by the team of Prof. Israel Pecht at Weizmann Institute's Immunology Department. Allergic reactions occur when a substance known as an allergen -- pollen, pet dander and mold are common examples -- triggers an abnormal response of the immune system involving a complicated cascade of molecular processes.