ILSI-Biomed Israel

Cancer Biomarkers in the Blood- a research from Technion

Finding the hallmarks of cancer in blood is hard to do — cancer-related proteins are present only in small amounts, are difficult to sort from all of the other circulating proteins, and tend to be eliminated quickly by the body. But one group has devised a method that could turn that around. At the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Arie Admon and his team have devised a method that combines immunoaffinity purification, microcapillary chromatography, and mass spectrometry to separ...

Perspective: Integrity in Academic Career

I think everyone who was a part of academic world on some stage of his career has something to say about integrity in this area. I invite you to contemplate on this issue and here are the two points of view. This article discribes how it should be and raises some interesting questions. And here is the comics describing how it is, at least somewhere, sometimes... So what do you think? What is the meaning of academic integrity for you personally? Tweet

Antioxidants Cause Genetic Abnormalities?

A new research reveals that high doses of antioxidants cause stem cells to develop genetic abnormalities, paving the way for cancer When people look back on the beginning of the 21st century, they might think this was the time of the antioxidants. Antioxidants supplements are being sold everywhere, usually without a doctor prescription, as a way to halt aging, heart diseases and whatever else is promised on the label. But current research, published online in the medical journal Stem Cells, r...

Plastics that Distort DNA Readings

A new research reveals that polypropylene tubes can contaminate solutions in the PCR and distort the DNA spectrometer readings. One year ago, a group of researchers at Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center in Jerusalem reported a sharp rise in the diagnoses of a certain metabolic disorder. To those of us who live in Jerusalem, fear not. Other than the Holyland story, nothing really happened in the Israeli capital in the last year. The only change is that the lab at Hadassah changed th...

Funny Things to Do When You Get Bored In the Lab

Bored senseless in the Lab? ILSI-BioMed crew came up with some interesting ideas to pass the time that have been circulating on the net       I like the last one most of all. It also seems to work.

Nanodrop Vs. Regular Spectrophotometer ?

A low-budget Youtube commercial for a Nanodrop spectrophotometer gives back its money worth - and much more Kindly watch the below video. It opens up slow, and it goes on even slower, but... well, it's only three minutes!     So what do we have here? Two nerdy looking scientists, having a painfully-mock argument about the virtues of the Nanodrop spectrophotometer as opposed to using the old fashioned spectrophotometer. Let me stress that I'm all for the Nanodrop device, as it tru...

A New Promise for High-Speed Genetic Sequencing

A new promise for high-speed genetic sequencing by threading DNA segments through carbon nanotubes was revealed in Science this week The Human Genome Project was first launched in 1990 by the US government, and a working draft of the genome was issued ten years later. At 1998, a similar venture was launched by Craig Venter and his firm Celera Genomics, who made use of a faster sequencing method to reach an initial working draft in only two years. It’s clear that genetic sequencing technol...

The First Scientific Agreement between Japan and Israel

Researchers from the Technion and Japan will collaborate to develop a platform for the creation of blood vessels and cells from embryonic stem cells. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyau said last week that the children of Israel should study Chinese as well as English. Personally, I would like to see more Israeli children doing the final exams, but I agree with his general approach. It's pretty obvious that the market is heading east: to India, China and Japan. And it's just as obvious that ...

From the Diabetes Congress: Cells from the Patient’s Own Blood Recruited to Treat Diabetes

A  novel development, which utilizes blood donation as a source for development of tissue regeneration products will be presented in the first Bildrici International Diabetes Congress Laniado’s Research Center in the Hematological department of Laniado hospital will present in the first Bildirici International Diabetes Congress, a novel development which allows the use of a simple blood donation unit as the source for development of tissue rehabilitating products or cells that can be ...

BenchFly: a Virtual Advisor for Graduate Students

BenchFly's website offers many useful tips for research and labwork, from ways of doing colony PCR to the best method to keep your waterbath clean. Protocols and techniques abound! If you’re a graduate student, doing your PhD or MSc study, you probably know by now that supervisors are not quite as useful as you would like them to be. Sure, once or twice a month you have a meeting with them, where you tell them of all the results you don’t have, and they tell you what to do next. But they ...