Gone are the days when people relied on recommendations from friends and family before making consumer purchases, choosing a vacation destination or perhaps even when casting a vote.  Today, there is a whole online community influencing us.  Understanding how opinions are formed and decisions are made in our online world is the focus of the research by Dr. Yaniv Dover of the Jerusalem Business School and the Federmann Center for the study of Rationality at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel (HU). His latest publication, in one of the top leading journals in management, the Journal of Consumer Research, shows that even the weather of the day can color our perception of past experiences.

 

Dover's research, done in collaboration with Prof. Leif Brandes at the University of Lucerne, Switzerland, used 12 years of data and 3 million hotel bookings to examine how 340 000 anonymous online reviews of hotels were influenced by the weather on the day they were written.  This was a far from simple evaluation that included matching between the booking made by the consumer and the written review, identifying the weather at the location of the reviewer, the star rating given, classification of vocabulary used to describe the stay, and the weather experienced during the stay at the hotel.  The researchers also used a special statistical model that takes into account both the decision to provide a review and the content of the review.

 

The results showed conclusively that, on average, bad weather (rain or snow) reduced the reviewers’ evaluation of their past hotel experience sufficiently to nearly demote the hotel from a 5- to a 4-star rating. Bad weather also made reviewers write longer and more critical and detailed reviews. They also showed that on rainy days there was a higher chance of choosing to write a review and that the effect of weather on the review was independent of the weather they experienced during the hotel stay. The authors suggest that this effect may be because bad weather days trigger more negative memories, or induce a negative mood which colors the review.

 

This research is interesting in itself but has much wider implications because it shows, for the first time, how our external physical environment—in this case the weather—can be a factor in our online judgments. Dover explains that this type of research "exposes an aspect of the dynamics of our new digital world… and can help policy makers frame policies to better engineer a more productive and healthy effect of online activities on our daily lives."

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CITATION: Offline Context Affects Online Reviews: The Effect of Post-Consumption Weather. Leif Brandes, Yaniv Dover Journal of Consumer Research, Jan 28 2022, DOI: 10.1093/jcr/ucac003

 

FUNDING: Israel Science Foundation

 

LINK TO ARTICLE:  

https://academic.oup.com/jcr/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jcr/ucac003/6516531

 

Research at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU)’s Institute of Earth Sciences, led by Professor Daniel Rosenfeld and his doctoral student Zengxin Pan, focused on the role of small particles (aerosols) in controlling the amount of rain and lightning produced by clouds. Their research has been able to explain why heavy ocean storms are accompanied by much less lightning than when a similar event occurs on land.  They identified that it is the larger, coarse sea spray that reduces the amount of lightning by as much as 90%, whereas smaller aerosols increase lightning. The size of particle also affects rainfall.  Their work clearly shows that the role of aerosols in clouds needs to be incorporated in climate models. 

 

Rosenfeld’s findings, published in Nature Communications, fill in the gaps in previous theories about what was responsible for the difference in lightning between land and ocean storms. It had always been assumed that the dearth of lightning in ocean storms was due to cleaner air over the ocean.  However, keen observations had already shown that even highly polluted air is associated with reduced lightning at sea when sea spray aerosols are abundant. 

 

The HU researchers in collaboration with scientists at Wuhan and Nanjing Universities in China, and the University of Washington, were able to use satellite imagery to track clouds over land and sea.  This was combined with lightening measurements from the Worldwide Lightning Location Network (WLLN) and with data that provided information on the amount of aerosols in the clouds.   "We found a major cause for such a difference between ocean storms and those on land," shared Rosenfeld. "The effect of aerosols on clouds has been underappreciated.  It needs to be incorporated into the models for better weather and climate prediction."

 

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CITATION:   Zengxin Pan, Feiyue Mao, Daniel Rosenfeld, Yannian Zhu, Lin Zang, Xin Lu, Joel A. Thornton, Robert H. Holzworth, Jianhua Yin, Avichay Efraim & Wei Gong, Coarse sea spray inhibits lightning, Nature Communications, 

ARTICLE: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-31714-5

 

FUNDING:  BSF, NSF.

 

While breakthroughs in the world of medicine and technology account for the global increase in life expectancy, improvements in quality of life for the elderly population lag far behind.  Longevity without a decline in health is one of the major challenges that faces the world of medicine. A new study led by Professors Einav Gross and Shmuel Ben-Sasson of the Faculty of Medicine at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU) has identified a group of molecules that enable cells to repair damaged components, making it possible for those tissues to retain proper function. The efficacy of the molecules was demonstrated on a model-organism.  The research team examined the effect of various therapies on longevity and quality of life, and successfully proved they can protect the organism’s and human cells from damage. Their findings were published in Autophagy.

 

Currently, a major factor in aging tissues is the reduced effectiveness of the cell’s quality-control mechanism, which leads to the accumulation of defective mitochondria. As Gross explained, “mitochondria, the cell’s ‘power plants,’ are responsible for energy production. They can be compared to tiny electric batteries that help cells function properly.  Although these ‘batteries’ wear out constantly, our cells have a sophisticated mechanism that removes defective mitochondria and replaces them with new ones.” However, this mechanism declines with age, leading to cell dysfunction and deterioration in tissue activity.

 

This degenerative process lies at the heart of many age-related diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, heart failure and sarcopenia, which are on the rise.  Gross and Ben-Sasson’s study may have far-reaching practical applications since their new technology, developed at Hebrew U., helped create innovative compounds to treat diseases that are currently incurable.  The study also showed that these molecules can be used preventively. “In the future, we hope we will be able to significantly delay the development of many age-related diseases and improve people’ quality of life,” shared Ben-Sasson.  Further, these compounds are user-friendly and can be taken orally. 

 

To advance their important research and translate it into medical treatment for a variety of patients, the research team, together with Yissum, Hebrew University’s tech transfer company, established Vitalunga, a startup that is currently developing this drug.  “Ben-Sasson’s and Gross’s findings have significant value for the global aging population,” noted Itzik Goldwaser, CEO of Yissum. “As Vitalunga advances towards pre-clinical studies, they’re closer than ever to minimizing the unbearable burden that aging-related diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, has on individuals, their families and the our health care systems.“

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CITATION: Vijigisha Srivastava, Veronica Zelmanovich, Virendra Shukla, Rachel Abergel, Irit Cohen, Shmuel A. Ben-Sasson & Einav Gross (2022) Distinct designer diamines promote mitophagy, and thereby enhance healthspan in C. elegans and protect human cells against oxidative damage, Autophagy, DOI: 10.1080/15548627.2022.2078069  

 

LINK TO ARTICLE: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15548627.2022.2078069

 

 

It shows how Putin's determination to develop Russian agriculture has, at the moment, paid off – not only by protecting Russia from threats of food sanctions but also by providing political control over the countries dependent on Russian grain imports. The paper was published in the recent issue of the Journal of Democracy.

 

The authors, Professor Yitzhak Brudny and two former doctoral students Dr. Janetta Azarieva and Prof. Eugen Finkel, present in this paper, "Bread and Autocracy in Putin's Russia," an overview of Putin's policies of nutritional self-sufficiency that now enable Russia to use food as both a shield and a weapon.  A book of the same title will be published by Oxford University Press.

 

This paper provides an important perspective for understanding global politics. As Prof Brudny explained, "It highlights the importance of food independence for authoritarian regimes…We take food for granted but non-democratic countries can only survive if they keep prices down." And that is problematic in closed markets without competition.

 

The paper charts how every major development in Russian and Soviet history since the 1917 revolution has either been driven by or closely associated with the availability of food. Indeed, it explains, how food scarcity in the USSR during the 1980s doomed President Mikhail Gorbachev's plans to revitalize communism.  It also shows that in 1992, Putin, as the vice-mayor of St Petersburg was committed to a policy of food security for the city.  The plan was a disaster but as soon as Putin became president in 2000, he embarked on a path of securing Russia's food independence from imports. The success of his policies owing much to the skills and professional expertise of the Minister of Agriculture (1999-2009) Aleksei Gordeev.

 

But total self-sufficiency brings its own problems. The system is vulnerable, explained Azarieva, "A few agro-industrial companies, controlled by the state, in turn, monopolize food production in Russia … the lack of competition results in price rises." Putin has responded, she said, by increasing salaries and social welfare payments – all funded by Russia's considerable gas and oil revenues. 

 

However, the country's revenues from grain exports have diminished – even though the West has not imposed sanctions on food from entering or leaving Russia. There is no point in sanctioning food imports when a country is self-sufficient, noted Azarieva.  However, sanctions on banks do impact the international network required to keep Russian exports flowing.  Further, silos are not emptying fast enough to provide storage for the next bumper harvest.  Countries of the former Soviet Republics anxiously await supplies, as does Turkey, and countries in North Africa and further afield. It is a complex interdependent web. This paper helps clarify and contextualize many of these complexities.

 

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CITATION: Azarieva, J., Y. Brudny, and E. Finkel. “Bread and Autocracy in Putin’s Russia”. Journal of Democracy, vol. 33, no. 3, July 2022, pp. 100–14.

 

LINK TO ARTICLE: https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/bread-and-autocracy-in-putins-russia/

 

A salvage excavation near the Temple Mount by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Institute of Archaeology has unearthed a unique ritual bath (“mikveh”) dating back to the Late Second Temple period (1^st Century CE).   These excavations, begun in February 2021 to provide handicap access between Jerusalem’s Old City and the Western Wall, were overseen by HU’s Michal Haber and Dr. Oren Gutfeld, funded in part by Israel’s Ministry for Jerusalem Affairs and the William Davidson Foundation, and spearheaded by the Company for the Reconstruction and Development of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem.

 

The ritual bath was found within a private villa, hewn into the bedrock and featuring a vaulted ceiling with fine masonry typical of the Herodian period.  It is located on top of a cliff in the “Upper City”—a phrase coined by historian Josephus Flavius to describe the area of Herod’s City which housed Jerusalem’s elites.  A plastered water cistern was uncovered near the same villa.  It had been in use until the destruction of the Second Temple by Rome in 70 CE, and held the remains of nearly 40 cooking pots, some still intact.

 

In addition to the ritual bath, the excavations unearthed additional artifacts that span the Second Temple, Roman-Byzantine and Ottoman periods, including a network of plastered pools and channels.  Among the finds were a section of the Ottoman-period phase of the “Lower Aqueduct” which transported water from Solomon’s Pools near Bethlehem all the way to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem during the Second Temple period; and an industrial pool built by soldiers of Rome’s Tenth Legion who were stationed in Jerusalem after the establishment of the Roman colony of “Aelia Capitolina” in 130 CE. The pool lies on top of the remains of an earlier Roman oven, also installed by soldiers of the Legion.  The bottom contains a layer of tile bricks, one of which was stamped with the letters “LXF,” alluding to “Legio X Fretensis,” the full name of the Tenth Legion. 

 

Also discovered over the course of excavation was a fragment of Late Byzantine-period ceramic oil lamp, inscribed with the Greek formula "The Light of Christ shines for all." This phrase may have its source in the ceremony of the Holy Fire, part of the Orthodox Easter celebrations in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Such oil lamps, dated primarily to the 6th and 7th centuries CE, may have been purchased by Christian pilgrims thronging to the Byzantine city -- by now known as “Hierosolyma”. 

 

Zeev Elkin, Israel’s Minister of Construction and Housing and of Jerusalem Affairs, inaugurated the Western Wall Elevator Project, noting “these rare finds, made during the Western Wall Elevator Project excavations, are truly exciting.  They provide proof of a continuous Jewish presence in Jerusalem for millennia.  Under my leadership, Israel’s Ministry of Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage will continue to preserve and develop Jerusalem’s rich Jewish past and to transform the capital into a modern, innovative city.”

 

Surveying the unique finds, Gutfeld shared, “The excavation revealed remains dating from the Second Temple, Roman-Byzantine, and Ottoman periods. The amount of water channels, cisterns and pools discovered in the area reflect the central role played by Jerusalem’s water supply throughout the ages.”

 

As noted, the highlight of the archaeological dig was the ritual bath. Haber explained the significance of this find, “during the Herodian period, the area in question was home to the city’s wealthiest residents. While several other ritual baths have been unearthed in the area, the importance of this particular discovery stems from its striking proximity to the Temple Mount—raising the question of who lived in this grand villa on the eve of the city’s destruction. It may well have been a priestly family.”

 

With the help of Dr. Amit Reem, chief archaeologist of the Israel Antiquities Authority’s Jerusalem District, the ritual bath will be preserved and incorporated into the new Western Wall Elevator complex.

 

The Ministry of Jerusalem Affairs, headed by Minister Elkin, continues to develop Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter.  Current projects include the Western Wall Elevator, the Tiferet Israel synagogue, upgrades to the Herodian Quarter and the Broad Wall archaeological site.

 

According to the ranking, the Hebrew University placed 17^th worldwide in Mathematics and Communications and 30^th in Law.  In Israel, HU was ranked first for the following subjects: Mathematics, Earth Sciences, Atmospheric Sciences, Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, Environmental Sciences, Water Resources, Food Sciences, Agriculture, Dentistry, Medical Technology, Economics, Law, Political Science, Communications, and Public Policy.

Professor Asher Cohen, President of Hebrew University, noted, “Academic and research excellence is part of Hebrew University’s DNA. The amazing breakthroughs happening here will enable all of us to live better, healthier and, most likely, longer lives, as well.  Hebrew U.’s strong position helps our alumni pave the way to lead Israel to achievements on an international scale.”

Shanghai Ranking Consultancy, the independent body which publishes the yearly ARWU, uses six objective indicators to rank world universities, including the number of alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, the number of highly cited researchers, the number of articles published in journals of Nature and Science, the number of articles indexed in the Science Citation Index, and universities’ per capita performance. 

For the full list of rankings, see http://www.shanghairanking.com    

 

The usual method of visualizing brain structure utilizes a technique most of us are familiar with, called MRI. However, it is not sensitive enough to reveal the biological changes that take place in the brain of Parkinson patients, and at present is primarily only used to eliminate other possible diagnoses. 

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU) researchers, led by Professor Aviv Mezer, realized that the cellular changes in Parkinson's could possibly be revealed by adapting a related technique, known as quantitative MRI (qMRI). Their method has enabled them to look at microstructures within the part of the deep brain known as the striatum – an organ which is known to deteriorate during the progress of Parkinson's disease.  Using a novel method of analysis, developed by Mezer's doctoral student, Elior Drori, biological changes in the cellar tissue of the striatum were clearly revealed. Moreover, they were able to demonstrate that these changes were associated with the early stages of Parkinson's and patients’ movement dysfunction. Their findings were published today in the prestigious journal Science Advances.

qMRI achieves its sensitivity by taking several MRI images using different excitation energies – rather like taking the same photograph in different colors of lighting.  The HU researchers were able to use their qMRI analysis to reveal changes in the tissue structure within distinct regions of the striatum. The structural sensitivity of these measurements could only have been previously achieved in laboratories examining the brain cells of patients post mortem.  Not an ideal situation for detecting early disease or monitoring the efficacy of a drug!

"When you don't have measurements, you don't know what is normal and what is abnormal brain structure, and what is changing during the progress of the disease," explained Mezer. The new information will facilitate early diagnosis of the disease and provide "markers" for monitoring the efficacy of future drug therapies. “What we have discovered,” he continued “is the tip of the iceberg.” It is a technique that they will now extend to investigate microstructural changes in other regions of the brain.  Furthermore, the team are now developing qMRI into a tool that can be used in a clinical setting. Mezer anticipates that is about 3-5 years down the line.

Drori further suggests that this type of analysis will enable identification of subgroups within the population suffering from Parkinson’s disease – some of whom may respond differently to some drugs than others. Ultimately, he sees this analysis “leading to personalized treatment, allowing future discoveries of drug with each person receiving the most appropriate drug".

 

 

Their findings were published in Nature Communications.

In 2006, Japanese scientists inserted four embryonic genes into skin cells and successfully reprogrammed those skin cells to act like embryonic stem cells.  Artificial embryonic stem cells made from skin cells are identical to natural stem cells that develop at the earliest stages of the embryonic development process and are responsible for the development of all the cells of a fetus.  However, they cannot create extra-embryonic tissues, such as the placenta.

 

In 2015, Prof. Buganim and his team were first to discover how to create artificial placental stem cells from skin cells.  This step enabled scientists to create the two earliest types of stem cells in the embryonic development process that happens right after sperm fertilize an egg.  In this current study, the HU research team, which included PhD students Mohammad Jaber, Ahmed Radwan and Netanel Loyfer, closely examined the process that skin cells undergo to transform themselves into either embryonic or placental stem cells.

 

“We analyzed the changes that skin cells undergo to change their identity and become one of the two earliest types of stem cells.  We looked at changes in gene expression of the skin cell, in the accessibility and activity of the DNA within the nucleus of the changing skin cell, and in epigenetic markers (i.e. marks that decorate the DNA and responsible for gene expression).  These are all critical when trying to convert a skin cell into an artificial embryonic or placental stem cell,” Buganim explained.

 

The researchers found that the changes that take place in skin cells to become either embryonic or placental artificial stem cells were entirely different from one another at every level, despite the fact that both started out as skin cells.

 

When a skin cell transforms into an artificial embryonic stem cell, the parts of DNA that are responsible to create the brain, heart and liver began to reorganize and prepare themselves to differentiate- given the right signal- into brain, heart or liver cells.  On the other hand, when those same cells were transforming into an artificial placental stem cell, the DNA sites began reorganizing themselves to allow the changing cell to implant itself and attract blood vessels, a phenomenon that occurs naturally, allowing the embryo to implant into the uterus.

 

The most remarkable discovery came when the team compared the two processes side-by-side and looked at a chemical molecule called methyl, which interacts with specific areas of the DNA and is responsible for silencing their expression.  “We discovered that artificial placental stem cells contained close to 14,000 DNA sites with methyl but were nowhere to be seen in the artificial embryonic stem cells,” shared Buganim.

 

When the research team tried to understand the significance of those DNA areas, they found that they’re responsible to create all the organs and cells in developing embryos—from the brain, heart, liver and kidneys to the skeleton, spinal cord and connective tissues.

 

Going forward, this significant discovery may help explain the embryonic defense system, which prevents early placental cells from developing into embryonic cells. “Since placental cells are susceptible to damage and infection, the body’s natural defense mechanism prevents placental cells that migrating to the developing embryo and attaching to it to become part of the embryo,” Buganim explained.  Overall, this study illuminates key features that characterize our ability to reprogram cells and provides a powerful tool to study cellular plasticity and cell-fate decisions.

 

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CITATION: Jaber, M., Radwan, A., Loyfer, N. et al. Comparative parallel multi-omics analysis during the induction of pluripotent and trophectoderm states. Nat Commun 13, 3475 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-31131-8

 

FUNDING: European Research Council, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Israel Science Foundation.

 

From the TIMES OF ISRAEL by By YAAKOV SCHWARTZ 

On the heels of a landmark trip to Saudi Arabia, the newly sworn-in United States special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, Prof. Deborah Lipstadt, said Tuesday at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University that “there is a change afoot in this region.”

She made her comments at the forum “New Tools in Combating Contemporary Antisemitism,” which was jointly held by the US Embassy in Jerusalem, Israel’s Foreign Ministry, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Diaspora Ministry.

“For too many decades, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia was a great exporter of Jew-hatred, but what I found is something quite different, something that has changed there dramatically in the last few years,” Lipstadt said, noting that the kingdom has also begun to implement changes in religious laws and the position of women in the country.   “I met with the heads and staffs of embassies focused on combating violent extremism, focused on interfaith dialogue, including the Muslim World League, whose secretary-general visited Auschwitz in 2020,” Lipstadt said. “We heard from a number of people who seemed willing to divide between the geopolitical crisis as it stands here in Israel vis-à-vis the Palestinians and the fact that antisemitism is something separate and apart.

“These are important first steps. There was a clear willingness to continue this conversation. There is room to move things forward.”

Among the panelists at the forum were US Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides, Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai, and CEO and national director of the Anti-Defamation League Jonathan Greenblatt. The forum was moderated by Hebrew University vice president and former Israeli ambassador Yossi Gal.

US Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides, left, shakes hands with ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt at the New Tools in Combating Contemporary Antisemitism forum at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, July 5, 2022. (Yaakov Schwartz/ Times of Israel)

Lipstadt spoke about the qualities of antisemitism that set it apart from other forms of racism and prejudice. She cited antisemitism’s ubiquity, its appearance on both the right and the left, and the conspiracy theory that Jews are using their wealth and knowledge to control the world.

Speaking a day after a shooter killed six people and wounded dozens more at an Independence Day parade in the highly Jewish Chicago suburb of Highland Park, Lipstadt recalled the manifesto of the perpetrator of the May 14 massacre in Buffalo, New York, which specifically targeted Black people.

“He was very clear — he wanted to kill as many Black people as he could. Black people were a danger, they were a danger to white society,” Lipstadt said. “But he believed that behind the efforts to destroy white society were Jews. He described them as ‘demons, the biggest problem the Western world has ever had. They have to be killed, and if they are lucky, to be exiled. We cannot show them any sympathy, they have to go back to the hell from where they came.’”

The Foreign Ministry has said that it has received information about Jewish casualties in Monday’s mass shooting north of Chicago, one of whom was identified as a synagogue staffer.

The rabbi of a Chabad Hasidic congregation near the shooting in Chicago’s Highland Park neighborhood said the alleged shooter attempted to enter his synagogue during the Passover holiday several months ago but was told to leave.

At the forum in Jerusalem, Nides said, “None of us would disagree that antisemitism is on the rise. You can’t open a newspaper or look at social media and hear about the violence that takes place and not believe it to be true. We’re doing our best, but our best is not enough.”

Repeating Lipstadt’s statement that antisemitism seeps in from all corners of society and across the political spectrum, Greenblatt said, “Something has changed in the US and around the world. In 2021, the ADL recorded the highest number of antisemitic incidents we’ve ever seen in American history — 2,717 acts, a 34 percent increase over the prior year… The number last year was almost triple that of 2015.”

Greenblatt noted that over 100 white supremacists from a group called the Patriot Front marched on July 4 in front of the state house in Boston, Massachusetts, while just weeks before, an anonymous “mapping project” published details of Boston-area Jewish institutions, calling them part of the “Zionist empire of oppression.”

The website, run by self-described “activists,” said that “every network has an address, every address can be disrupted, every organization can be dismantled.”

“Who do they blame, who do they make this slander against? The Jewish Community Center of Boston, the Jewish day school, the synagogues. How does this happen that you blame the synagogues for the devastation and ‘colonization’? It’s because for years, we’ve seen this in some elements of the anti-Israel community. Anti-Israeli NGOs in the US have been saying this kind of thing for years, with no one stopping them, no one protesting them,” Greenblatt said.

He said the ADL is cooperating with the FBI to find out who is behind the project and to take the perpetrators to court for incitement and slander.

Lipstadt added that the mapping project “has brought something out from behind the scenes and made it very clear what is there.”

“It highlighted the problem in a way that 1,000 speeches and seminars could never do,” said Lipstadt.

 

 

 

 

 

"Currently, there are no efficient, validated platforms for rapidly generating anti-viral drugs," says ViroBlock CEO and Founder Isaiah (Shy) Arkin, who is also an HU professor of biological chemistry in the Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences. "Scientists must develop new agents and a customized approach to target every new virus, without the ability to predict how that virus will develop resistance. ViroBlock is working on a promising drug candidate for COVID-19 using an approach that can be duplicated with most other important viruses."

 

According to a new study conducted by pharma research company Evotec, ViroBlock’s new technology platform demonstrated the potential to rapidly provide solutions for treating current and emerging viral threats, including COVID-19 and variants, influenza, Zika, West Nile, and Hepatitis B. The study showed that channel blockers it identified could protect cells from viral-induced death alongside dramatically lowering the amount of viral progeny.

 

ViroBlock's antiviral drug candidates inhibit two targets in the virus: the E (envelope) protein and the 3a protein. The E protein is an ion channel, a type of protein family expressed by virtually all living cells that because of its structure has served as a frequent target for pharmaceutical point interventions. For example, while the spike proteins of SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV-1 (the 2003 virus) are only about 75% identical, their E proteins are roughly 95% alike. This means the ViroBlock drugs would likely remain effective even when the virus mutates.

 

"With our propriety technology, ViroBlock can identify targets in a new viral threat (or variant), develop inhibitors against it, and determine the resistance potential of the virus against the new drug, all at an unprecedented pace," Arkin says.

 

The next phase of clinical trials will test the efficacy of this anti-viral approach for humans. The company also has drugs in the pipeline produced by the platform currently being tested that could be effective against other viruses.

 

ViroBlock was founded in 2020 by Yissum, the Hebrew University technology transfer company.

 

Pain management is one of the biggest challenges of the modern healthcare system.  Almost 60% of US adults report having experienced pain in the past three months and pain is one of the main reasons adults seek medical care. Adequate pain management is critical for patient health and wellbeing. A new study published today in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), found that physicians prescribed less pain medication during nightshifts than during the day.

 

The research was conducted by a multidisciplinary team led by Professor Shoham Choshen-Hillel from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU)’s School of Business Administration and Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality, HU Psychology Department’s Dr. Anat Perry, and Dr. Alex Gileles-Hillel from Hadassah Medical Center and HU. 

 

In the first part of the study, 67 doctors were given empathy assessment tasks in the morning and asked to respond to simulated patient scenarios.  These doctors were either at the end of a 26-hour shift or just beginning their workday. The study found that doctors who recently completed night shift showed less empathy for patient’s pain. For example, these physicians’ exhibited decreased emotional responses to pictures of people in pain and consistently scored their patients low on pain assessment charts.

 

In the second part of the study, the researchers looked at actual medical decisions made by emergency room doctors in the United States and Israel.  In all, they analyzed 13,482 discharge letters for patients who came to the hospital in 2013-2020 with a chief complaint of pain (headache, back pain, etc.).  Across all data sets, physicians were 20-30% less likely to prescribe an analgesic during nightshifts (compared to daytime shifts) and prescribed fewer painkillers than were generally recommended by the World Health Organization. “They’re tired and therefore they’re less empathic to patients’ pain.  When we looked at ER doctors’ discharge papers, we found that they prescribed fewer painkillers,” Choshen-Hillel explained. 

 

This bias remained significant even after adjusting for patients’ reported level of pain, patient and physician’s demographics, type of complaint, and emergency department characteristics.  “Our takeaway is that nightshift work is an important and previously unrecognized source of bias in pain management, likely stemming from impaired perception of pain. The researchers explain that even medical experts, who strive to provide the best care for their patients, are susceptible to the effects of a nightshift,” Perry noted.

 

Looking ahead, the researchers suggest implementing more structured pain management guidelines in hospitals.  Another important implication relates to physician work structure, and the need to improve physicians’ working schedules. “Our findings may have implications for other workplaces that involve shiftwork and empathic decision-making, including crisis centers, first responders, and the military. In fact, these results should probably matter to all people who are sleep-deprived,” added Gileles-Hillel.

 

In addition to the three lead authors, the Israeli authors included Tom Gordon-Hecker, Shir Genzer and Salomon Israel from the Hebrew University and Ido Sadras and David Rekhtman the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center in Jerusalem. The US research team included David Gozal, Koby Clements, and Adrienne Ohler from Missouri University, and Eugene M. Caruso from UCLA.

 

 

Dr. Anastasiia Zinevych recently arrived in Israel.  During her first day of teaching at Odessa National Economic University after winter break, the buildings shook as bombs began to fall and a nearby airport was severely damaged.  After the rumbling died down and with “the supermarket shelves bare of food and the pharmacies out of medicine,” she and her husband decided to leave the Ukraine.  “All we took with us were two laptops and a copy of my husband’s poetry”.  In need of medical attention, the couple chose Israel because they had “heard good things about Hebrew University-Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital.”

After a harrowing trip crossing the border into Poland, the pair arrived in Israel.  “I literally exhaled for the first time in weeks when our plane touched down in Israel and knelt down to touch the earth.  I’m not Jewish, my husband is, but I felt such gratitude for this country and to Hebrew University for taking us in.”

Since then, Zinevych has been living in a university-affiliated apartment and is working with Professor Ran Hassin at HU’s Center for the Study of Rationality where she will continue her studies.

In addition to Zinevych, 9 other Ukrainian refugees that have arrived at Hebrew University.  Several undergraduate students are continuing their studies in Israel at HU’s Rothberg International School, and a number of professors have joined HU’s Psychology, Sociology, History, Jewish Studies, Computer Science and Agriculture departments.

The University established its Emergency Aid Campaign for Ukrainian Researchers and Students to enable them to continue their academic studies and research, which had been halted due to the unfolding crisis.  The aid provides a minimum of four months tuition and a generous living stipend.  Each researcher has been matched with a HU faculty member who will serve as their mentor during their stay. 

“Let us not close our eyes or ignore what is happening in Ukraine.  As more resources become available, we hope to bring more Ukraine scientists and students to our research centers at Hebrew University.  It is our moral duty." shared HU President Professor Asher Cohen. 

 

Attempts to build a more equitable and inclusive society has taken a step forward with the discovery of a "diversity illusion" by a team of researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU).  Their findings clearly show that within a social setting most people significantly overestimate the presence of a minority – and this overestimation is made not only by the majority but also by the minority themselves.  Moreover, they found that this illusion is likely to hamper attempts to build a more equitable society, as it leads to less support for policies aimed at promoting diversity.  Their findings were published in PNAS, the journal of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

 

"I believe that our work has immediate and real-life implications," said research team leader, Professor Ran Hassin at HU’s Psychology Department and The Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality.   To counteract this bias, he suggests two things must be done to improve decision making: the actual numbers of the minority need to be made known and people need to understand how they are affected by this cognitive bias.  But being aware of the diversity illusion is just the first step, explains Hassin, "we also need to be motivated to fix it," then we can move towards the implementation of better policies.

 

The HU team's first experiment focused on students at the university, where the majority is Jewish-Israeli and the minority (around 12%) is Palestinian-Israeli (Arab).  The students were asked to recall instances of walking through the main hallway of the university campus and estimate what percentage of Arab students there are at the university. Both Jewish and Arab students gave much higher estimates (Jewish students estimated 31% and Arab students estimated 35%).

 

"At first, we couldn't believe the results, so we ran the same experiment several times," says Dr. Rasha Kardosh, a postdoctoral student. It was in fact Dr. Kardosh who initially suggested this research project. She had been amazed to discover that it had never been researched before.  As a social psychologist from a minority group (namely, Arab), she has been able to bring new perspectives to the field. 

 

These first astonishing results were repeated in several other experiments, including one with American participants viewing a grid of a 100 student faces, with 25% of African American faces randomly scattered among white ones.  A vast overestimation of the minority (over 40%) was recorded by both white and African American participants, confirming that being part of the minority had no effect on gauging the correct estimate of fellow-minorities.

 

For an explanation of the diversity illusion, Dr. Kadosh points to the well-established fact that "our cognitive system switches its focus to what it doesn’t expect.  Just think of walking through the vegetable section of a supermarket and suddenly seeing a bottle of laundry detergent among the potatoes."   In a social setting, that focus can be on the minority group, and the shift of focus makes the event claim more importance in our perception and memories; the result is an overestimation of the minority.  Both she and Prof. Hassin now plan to investigate how this effect impacts on our perception of other minorities.

 

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CITATION: Minority salience and the overestimation of individuals from minority groups in perception and memory, Rasha Kardosh Asael Y. Sklar, Yoni Pertzov and  Ran R. Hassin.

119 (12) e2116884119 | https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2116884119

 

LINK TO ARTICLE: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2116884119