https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/when-proteins-go-strike
February 27, 2025
A basic business principle is that no worker is irreplaceable; that also holds true for most proteins, the cellular factory workers of our bodies. If we fire a protein – that is, permanently delete it from our genome using genetic engineering – the cell will likely initiate a com...
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/new-immune-mechanism-revealed-cellular-trash
March 5, 2025
Much like humans generate mountains of garbage, our cells are constantly discarding proteins that are damaged or no longer needed. The cellular waste disposal system called the proteasome is best known for its central role in protein degradation and recycling, but as far back as...
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/space-physics/matter-crossroads
March 13, 2025
Instantly turning a material from opaque to transparent, or from a conductor to an insulator, is no longer the stuff of science fiction. For several years now, scientists have been using lasers to control the properties of matter at extremely fast rates: during one optical cycle...
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/they’d-rather-die-lesson-male-roundworms-refuse-learn
March 20, 2025
In human society, men tend to be seen as risk-takers, while women are seen as being more cautious. According to evolutionary psychologists, this difference developed in the wake of threats to each sex, and their respective needs. While such generalizations are, of course, too bin...
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/getting-cancer-unmask-itself
March 27, 2025
When your social media account starts spewing out nonsensical or threatening status updates, it’s safe to assume that it has been hacked and must be shut down. The cells in our body also update their “status” by presenting to their environment small proteins that are constantly b...
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/multiple-proteins-viewed-never
April 1, 2025
AI systems already work their magic in many areas of biomedical science, helping to solve protein structure, discover hidden patterns in the genome and process massive amounts of biological data. Now, an AI-assisted technology developed at the Weizmann Institute of Science and de...
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/master-switch-turning-immune-cells-cancer-eradicators
April 10, 2025
To grow, cancer tumors must hijack the immune system for their needs. One of the main tricks that most tumors use is to manipulate a type of immune cell called a macrophage, causing it to protect the tumor from the rest of the immune system, recruit blood vessels and help the can...
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/campus/“bridges-understanding-and-innovation”
April 10, 2025
Kator David Igbudu, a lecturer in the University of Nigeria’s Public Health Department, takes an active part in local initiatives against malaria and HIV. He involves youth in community campaigns to distribute mosquito nets and supports victims of sexual violence. “My passion to...
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/space-physics/beyond-words
April 21, 2025
The AI revolution, which has begun to transform our lives over the past three years, is built on a fundamental linguistic principle that lies at the base of large language models such as ChatGPT. Words in a natural language are not strung together in random patterns; rather, ther...
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/wake-call-dormant-cancer
April 22, 2025
Breast cancer is becoming increasingly treatable, but in some cases the disease can resurface even decades after a patient has been declared cancer free. This is because of cells that detach from the original tumor and hide in a dormant state in the breast or other organs. Little...