The accumulation of the amyloid-beta protein in the brain leads to the type of cognitive impairment observed in people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease or Down Syndrome. A study conducted by Prof. Eitan Okun’s group at the Paul Feder Alzheimer’s Disease Research Laboratory in BIU’s Gonda (Goldschmied) Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center found that immunity transmitted from the mother to the fetus may lead to a significant reduction in the accumulation of the amyloid-beta protein and less damage. Read More.

BIU’s Azrieli Faculty of Medicine will open a Teddy Bear Hospital on Monday, May 3. The event aims to alleviate any pre-existing fears that children might have toward medical treatment. Children aged 3-7 are invited to bring a favorite teddy bear or doll and to ask questions about illness, injuries, or medical care. Azrieli Faculty students and doctors will talk to the children, suggest medical treatment for their dolls and teddy bears, and answer questions. The Teddy Bear Hospital is a popular community event held annually by the Azrieli Faculty of Medicine in the Galilee for children, their parents, and...

The mobile clinic of the School of Optometry and Vision Science in BIU’s Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences recently arrived in Beit Shemesh to perform vision tests at a nursing home as well as for local welfare recipients. The mobile clinic regularly goes out to the field, providing free vision tests mainly for residents of the periphery and underprivileged populations. Read More.

Israel is approaching herd immunity against corona, which has allowed the country to celebrate recent holidays and gradual rounds of openings without experiencing any new outbreaks, according to the head of the immunotherapy laboratory at Bar-Ilan University. “My opinion is that we are nearing the state of herd immunity,” said Prof. Cyrille Cohen. “Why do I say it? Because even after so many openings, and Purim, and Passover, the reproduction rate of the virus in Israel has remained between 0.7 and 0.8.” Read More.

Geoffrey Clarfield visited the Azrieli Faculty of Medicine in Tsfat, northern Israel and wrote about it in The Epoch Times. “Tsfat’s Azrieli Faculty of Medicine and upgraded Ziv Medical Center are thanks to the hard work and dedication of Bar-Ilan University, based in Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv. I wanted to know more, so I visited Noam Reshelbach, administrative head of the faculty,” he said in the article. Read More.

Bar-Ilan University’s central location in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area has put it on the map of the purple line of the new light rail (now under construction), with two stations that will facilitate the commute to campus. Read More.

Healthy people taking aspirin regularly to prevent cardiovascular disease had a 29 percent lower likelihood of Covid-19 infection compared to aspirin non-users, according to an observational epidemiological study from Israel published in The FEBS Journal. Researchers from Leumit Health Services, Bar-Ilan University, and Barzilai Medical Center analyzed data of 10,477 members of the Leumit HMO who had been tested for Covid-19 from February 1, 2020, to June 30, 2020. Read More.

Bar-Ilan University experts weighed in on Israel’s fourth elections in two years. Moments before Israelis cast their ballots in last month’s elections, The Jerusalem Press Club, Israel Government Press Office, and Bar-Ilan University hosted a special webinar briefing featuring analysts commenting on a broad range of issues. Read More.

Prof. Shulamit Michaeli, vice president for research and a faculty member of the Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences at Bar-Ilan University, has made significant strides in understanding the internal functions of trypanosomatids. Now, she and a team of scientists have identified a non-coding RNA (ncRNA) molecule that regulates protein translation in the parasite. Read More.

Israel’s 24th annual National Biology Olympiad for outstanding high school students was recently held at Bar-Ilan University in cooperation with the Israel Ministry of Education. Despite the challenges facing schools during the COVID-19 pandemic, thousands of outstanding students took part in the competition: 2,350 Hebrew speakers and 750 Arab speakers; two-thirds of all participants were girls, four of whom reached the finals along with two boys. Read More.