WEIZMANN UK

08/10/2026

Great to see The Times and The Sunday Times covering this fascinating story from the lab of Professor Michal Irani at the Weizmann Institute of Science about an AI ‘Mind reading’ tool that can recreate, with uncanny accuracy, images that people are looking at by tapping into their brain activity. The system, Brain-IT, takes in data from fMRI brain scans, which track blood flow and blood oxygen levels inside the brain to measure changes in activity across different regions. The AI can then produce an image that closely resembles the one being viewed by the person whose brain is being scanned, whether it is a face, a piece of fruit, a landscape or a scene such as a baseball game. Read the full Times story via the gift link.
https://www.thetimes.com/article/3edfeda2-1b93-40dc-954e-2af53bdc1fc9?shareToken=afbb930ae40d18c7269af7ce32386cd6

07/10/2026

Today marks three years since the attacks of 7 October 2023. We pause to remember our colleagues and friends at the Weizmann Institute of Science, those whose lives were lost and those who continue to live with grief and trauma following the events of that day. We pay tribute to Dr. Marcel Frailich Kaplun and her husband, Dror, who were murdered in their home in Kibbutz Be’eri on that day. Marcel devoted her life to science education. She was a chemistry teacher, researcher, developer of educational materials, and teacher educator, and for many years she contributed to the development of curricula, textbooks, and digital tools in the Department of Science Teaching at the Weizmann Institute of Science. For those who knew her, Marcel was far more than the sum of her professional accomplishments. She was intelligent and dedicated, full of energy, with a presence that was impossible to miss. The memorial dedicated to her at the Clore Garden of Science reads: “Her bright spirit, passion for science education, and devotion to her students continue to inspire us all.” May her memory be a blessing.

30/09/2026

28/09/2026

If your knees start to ache as you age, you can thank evolution for giving you a better chance of survival. Scientists from the Weizmann Institute of Science and Kyoto University have revealed, in a new study published in Nature, that humans have evolved to produce significantly less GAG molecules in their cartilage than other great apes. Dr. David Gokhman of the Weizmann Institute of Science said, “That shift made our joints less effective at absorbing shocks and exposed us to skeletal diseases – including osteoarthritis, degeneration of the spinal discs and herniated discs – that are uncommon in other great apes, including those that reach old age. Even chimps that live into their 60s or 70s, for example, are almost as agile as younger ones while climbing trees.” One possible reason for this involves the brain. Lower GAG levels may have allowed the human brain to remain exceptionally malleable for much longer compared to other great apes, giving humans more time to learn, adapt and acquire increasingly complex skills.
https://www.weizmann.org.uk/science/latest-discoveries/blame-evolution-for-your-bad-knees

23/09/2026

The fifth and final episode of The Sound of Science: Future Feasts from Weizmann Institute of Science is now live. Listen to the episode now and catch up on the whole unmissable series https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEFLKqk4VnU

22/09/2026

AI has rapidly become an everyday part of our lives, but could it get inside your mind? A new AI model called Brain-IT can “read” your brain activity and reconstruct what you see. Developed in the lab of Prof. Michal Irani at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Brain-IT has learned to identify brain activity patterns that recur across different people as they process images, allowing it to learn to “read” a person’s brain with extraordinary speed and accuracy. “While every other model requires dozens of hours of brain scans to learn to ‘read’ a new person, our model needs only one hour,” Irani says. “It’s possible that in the future we may even be able to read dreams.”
https://www.weizmann.ac.il/pages/news/mathematics-and-computer-science/the-new-science-of-mind-reading

17/09/2026

We’re delighted to share the recent successes of scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science who have been awarded prizes or appointed to prestigious academic positions. Huge congratulations to:
- Prof. Eran Elinav of the Systems Immunology Department on his appointment to the Microbiome Subcommittee of the U.S. Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antibiotic Resistance
- Prof. Robert Krauthgamer of the Computer Science and Applied Mathematics Department, on being awarded the Best Paper award at the European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2026)
- Prof. Lucio Frydman of the Department of Chemical and Biological Physics, on being awarded the Israel Cancer Research Fund (ICRF) Professorship Grant
- Profs. Schraga Schwartz and Noam Stern-Ginossar of the Molecular Genetics Department, on being elected as members of EMBO
- Dr. Leeat Yankielowicz-Keren of the Molecular Cell Biology Department, on being awarded the 2026 ERC Starting Grant
- Dr. Nir Galili of the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department, Dr. Natanella Illouz-Eliaz of the Plant and Environmental Sciences Department, Dr. Tom Manovitz of Physics of Complex Systems Department and Dr. Tamar Rott Shaham of the Computer Science and Applied Mathematics Department on being awarded the Beresheet Grant from the Israel Science Foundation

14/09/2026

How many viruses does it take to trigger an infection? Scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science have found that individual cells have their own "infectious dose" threshold. The team, led by Dr. Yaarit Kitsberg from the lab of Prof. Noam Stern-Ginossar discovered that the cellular infectious dose determines whether a virus will become active in the cell or enter a dormant state. Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infects most of the world’s population, usually without causing disease. But when the immune system is weakened, the dormant virus can reawaken and cause severe infections. The findings were published in Nature Communications. Prof. Stern-Ginossar said: “In the coming years, this understanding could shape how we manage herpes virus carriers.”
https://www.weizmann.org.uk/science/latest-discoveries/the-viral-tipping-point

09/09/2026

Wishing all our friends and supporters a healthy, happy and peaceful Rosh Hashanah.

07/09/2026

Are you ready for Episode Four of Future Feasts from the Weizmann Institute of Science? Prof. Roee Ozeri explores the hidden mechanisms that allow living systems to survive a changing world, from yeast evolving new abilities in the lab to wild wheat carrying ancient genetic traits that modern agriculture left behind. Featuring Prof. Avi Levy, Prof. Asaph Aharoni, Dr. Orna Dahan, Dr. Shachar Rezenman, Dr. Noa Ron-Hefetz and Dr. David Zeevi. Listen now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuBdi_4H0pI