"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.

 

 

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.

 

###

 

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

 

"Connecting with a partner depends on how well we can synchronize our bodies. We specialize in studying parent-infant bonding – and we had already seen the same thing there," she explained.  

The researchers looked at how a heterosexual couple's physiology and behavior adapt to each other during that first encounter.  The study was based on a speed-date experiment consisting of forty-six dates. Each date lasted 5 minutes during which the levels of physiological regulation of each partner were recorded with a band worn on the wrist. Behavioral movements, such as nodding, moving an arm, shifting a leg were also recorded in each partner during the date. After the encounter, the couple assessed the romantic interest and sexual attraction they felt for each other.  The study clearly showed that when couples synchronize their physiology with one another and adapt their behavioral movements to their partner during the date, they are romantically attracted to one another.  This research was recently published in Scientific Reports.

Intriguingly, the study also showed that the degree of synchrony affected men and women differently.  Although for both genders synchrony predicted attraction, women were more sexually attracted to men who showed a high level of synchrony – “super-synchronizers”; these men were highly desirable to female partners.

"Our research, " said Atzil, "demonstrates that behavioral and physiological synchrony can be a useful mechanism to attract a romantic partner. However, we still don’t know whether synchrony raises attraction or does the feeling of attraction generate the motivation to synchronize?”  An area of research that Atzil is planning to investigate.

 

 

In a war-torn country that has seen 4 months of fierce fighting since the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, Zelenskyy said to the students assembled, “When the war will end, and I believe it will, we will have to look into one another’s eyes for many generations to come—That’s why I wanted to speak with you, the current generation, today.”

Zelenskyy singled out Israel for not doing more to help Ukraine, “This is about values.  Anyone who seeks to destroy another country needs to be held accountable.  Unfortunately, we have not yet seen Israel join the other countries that are boycotting Russia.“

During the Q&A, several HU students asked what can be done to keep news of the war in Ukraine front and center. Another student, born in from Kharkiv, proudly told Zelenskyy that her father is currently in Ukraine fighting against the Russians.  Moved by this news, Zelenskyy shared “Ukraine’s warriors and civilians need medication, drinking water, fuel. People forget that there is a war going on in Ukraine. No matter where you are, where you study, you can to help those that are fighting.  We have many student volunteers who are collecting donations online to send food and medication to our cities under attack.  We also have student volunteers writing on social media to make sure the word doesn’t forget about the war and to spread the truth to the world.”

 

Over the past few months, the Hebrew University has taken in Ukrainian a number of researchers and students who managed to escape the horrors of war.  They, too were in the audience.  Zelenskyy spoke of his—and his nation’s ties to the Jewish people, noting, “My office is located in the very center of Kiev.  Nearby is the house where Golda Meir grew up.  Not far is where Sholem Aleichem lived.  This is the heritage of Ukraine…it isn’t just historical facts.  It’s real human life that has brought our cultures together.”  Zelenskyy lamented the impact that the war has had on national sites in Ukraine, including the monument at Babi Yar honoring Jewish victims, “The Russians even bombed Babi Yar…We all remember and treasure these sites. This is all under threat. How can you preserve memorial places during an all-out war?”, he asked.

 

Zelenskyy couldn’t help noting the difference between the calm HU auditorium where HU students and faculty assembled for his address and the current state of Ukraine’s universities, “2,000 academic institutions in Ukraine have been destroyed.  Can you imagine it, sitting in your lovely auditorium in Hebrew University?”  He went on to add, “Week after week…the Russians are trying to hide the fact that they’ve been burying dead Ukrainian civilians in unmarked graves.  They’re killing and raping and torturing innocent civilians long the way…By our estimates, more than 12 million Ukrainians have been displaced.  We haven’t seen these number since World War 2.  How can you not help the victims of such aggression?”

 

In his remarks, HU President Professor Asher Cohen welcomed Zelenskyy, sharing

"President Zelenskyy’s address to the Hebrew University community today is a seamless continuation of our policy to not remain indifferent when innocent people are killed, families are destroyed, and life is put on hold by an unjust and unnecessary war.  We, as individuals, and certainly as Israel’s leading academic institution, cannot afford to remain passive in the wake of Russia’s invasion of a sovereign country.  We must do everything in our power to reach out and help the people of Ukraine."

 

The Ukrainian Ambassador to Israel Yevgen Korniychuk also attended Zelenskyy’s address.  He shared, "We appreciate the support we’ve received from the citizens of Israel and now ask for support from Israel’s government, as well. Please help the Ukrainian people in their distress.”

 

Looking ahead, Zelenskyy was optimistic about Ukraine’s candidacy for European Union membership, “We’re moving towards a new future, closer to the European family.  Soon we will be part of that family.  This is for our children—to become a European state that will be part of the EU.  This will provide us with strong protection.”