Pursue Your Future in Medicine

Camera 'sees' through skin, around corners

An early-stage Israeli invention could one day make the surgical biopsy obsolete.

Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, have discovered a new physics trick. While it’s not exactly Superman vision—yet—the camera developed by Ori Katz, Eran Small and Prof. Yaron Silberberg sees through objects using a simple light bulb, a standard digital camera and the basic technology found in everyday digital projectors.

Their camera can see through nearly opaque surfaces such as skin or frosted glass—even around a corner into another room if the door is open.

Other scientists around the world have produced similar results, but only when using laser technology and not in real time.

While the applications are far down the road, the new discovery points the way to non-invasive cancer diagnostics. Katz, a post-doctoral student, tells ISRAEL21c that biopsies could be circumvented if this approach is further developed by the medical imaging industry.

The international press has gone wild over the idea, stirring much exhilaration among the inventors.

“Every time someone wrote on a website that we developed ‘Superman vision,’ it made me more excited,” admits Katz, who will be continuing his research in Paris for the next few years. “Even if it is not applied one day in medicine, we had to do what we did because it’s very cool.”

israel21c.org/technology/camera-sees-through-skin-around-corners

Bar-Ilan Returning Scientist Co-Authors Study Published in Nature Methods

Dr. Amit Tzur, a Bar-Ilan University Returning Scientist, is one of a team of MIT and Harvard Medical School researchers whose study on mammalian cell growth and size regulation is published in the latest issue of Nature Methods. An important area of Dr. Tzur's research focuses on controlling the growth of dividing cells. Dividing cells double their size during their life cycle so that at the time of division, the cell is twice the size it was at birth. This process, known as cell growth, occurs with precision and amazing timing. Because the cells maintain their size from generation to generation, it is likely that during the process of division and growth they actually "speak" to one another.

For years, it has been known that in single-cell organisms, such as yeast, there is an intracellular link that synchronizes the division mechanism with the growth mechanism. In multi-cellular organisms, cell division and cell growth may be inspected separately via signals emanating from outside the cell, so for years it was believed that there is no need for an intracellular mechanism that synchronizes the division mechanism with the growth mechanism, similar to that of single-cell organisms.  Theoretically, it is possible to trace such a mechanism by accurate measurement of cell size during its lifetime and calculating the rate of cell growth. But until recently, it was impossible to perform these measurements in multi-cell organisms and, therefore, this question remained unanswered.

Far more complex is to monitor the growth concomitantly with the cell cycle progression so one can report the relationship between size, growth and the cell's milestones throughout its life cycle. The study published this week combines expertise in cellular biology, computational biology and cutting-edge engineering to show that mammalian cells, similar to single-cell organisms, have an ability to sense their size and regulate cell division in accordance. Since the size of the cell is so vital to the functioning of the tissue to which it belongs, maintaining constant cell size is critical — hence the importance of this mechanism.    The discovery was made in the framework of Dr. Tzur's post-doctoral research at Harvard Medical School and is a follow-up to an initial breakthrough published in Science in 2009.

Dr. Tzur, a cell biologist, returned to Israel in 2010 after five years at Harvard Medical School. A native of Karmiel, he assumed a post at Bar-Ilan University's Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences and the University's Institute for Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials (BINA).  He and his research team are now attempting to learn how this mechanism works in the cell and what its implications are in normal and cancerous cells.

www1.biu.ac.il/indexE.php?id=33&pt=20&pid=117&level=2&cPath=33&type=1&news=1726

Some thoughts from Dr. Robert Dickman on medical school

My first day at medical school was one I'll never forget.

During my college years I had taken only those essential science courses required by medical school admissions committees. I had no special affinity for science and my “B” in organic chemistry was a forgiving one to say the least. I was a philosophy major and for a while was torn between becoming a doctor or pursuing a career in academic philosophy. Indeed, my senior year at Brown found me writing a honors thesis in metaphysics and taking philosophy graduate level seminars.

Within the first few hours of starting medical school I found myself face-to-face with my rented microscope and about 300 microscopic depictions of the human anatomy. All around me my fellow students were busy fussing with their microscopes and looking at a few of the slides in their boxes.I had actually never worked a microscope (unless you count the one that came with my chemistry set I got when I was 8!)

Two seats to my right sat a young man with a very heavy New York accent. He saw my fumbling and rather than help, he decided to rub salt in the wound. “Pick a sloide” he said. I reached into my box and drew one out randomly which he deftly put under his microscope. About 10 seconds later he turned to me with a big grin and uttered but one word; “Livah.”

It was at that instant that I began to think I had made a huge mistake in deciding to go to medical school. How was I going to survive in this sea of aggressive science majors who clearly had an enormous head start and a unfair advantage? The anatomy, histology, biochemistry and physiology which comprised the bulk of the first year curriculum seemed as almost insurmountable obstacles to my becoming a physician.

Many years later as a professor at that very same school I published a paper which demonstrated conclusively something I wish I had known on that memorable first day: Namely, that what you major in during college has absolutely no effect on your academic performance or career selection in medical school.

As an active clinician and department chair at a major Boston medical school I am more convinced of this today than I was then. In over 40 years of teaching and evaluating medical “learners”, I never once remember saying or even thinking “if only Sally had taken more biochemistry in college she would have diagnosed or treated this patient more effectively!” Knowing it's “Livah” on the first day of medical school might make histology a bit easier for the first few weeks but it won't make you a better doctor.

In some ways medical education has changed a lot since I started long ago. On the other hand it has also remained very much the same. In future posts I will discuss some of these issues from the perspective of non-science majors and the challenges they might expect as they move toward their M.D.degrees.

Bar Ilan Offers Full Tuition Scholarship to New English-Language PreMed Program in Israel

(Tel Aviv)—Now there’s a new, Israeli addition to US postbac, premed programs that offer US college graduates with no science background a year to make up their premed requirements: Bar Ilan, Israel’s largest research university, has just opened up a one-year, English-language, postbac premed program on its Tel Aviv campus. And one lucky student will be awarded a full tuition scholarship this year.

“Unlike its US competition, Bar Ilan’s program is more affordable [as low as $20,000, based on eligibility, less than a third of comparable programs in the US],  with smaller class sizes [instead of enormous lecture classes crammed with 400 undergraduates, the Bar Ilan classes cap at 35 students]. In addition, the program offers intensive Stanley Kaplan MCAT training [whose price is included in the program] as well as personalized medical school interview training, and one-on-one application help to support students’ medical school applications,” said Don Katcoff, Director of the Bar Ilan PostBac PreMed Program.

The program, aimed at students returning to the US for medical school, is also open to students interested in careers in audiology, optometry, pharmacy, podiatry, psychology, and rehabilitation science, as well as those preparing for veterinary or nursing school. The Bar Ilan premed program is one of the only postbacs worldwide with a focus on global health initiatives.

“Bar Ilan faculty, which includes graduates of Harvard, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, and Columbia, has been teaching premed courses for close to 50 years,” said Dr. Robert Dickman, US director of the program, and former chair of family medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine.  “We have developed a comprehensive experience designed to make well-rounded future medical students, including MCAT preparation, clinical exposure, and global health initiatives.”

For more information on the new Bar Ilan premed program and how to apply for the Bar Ilan premed full tuition scholarship, see the website at www.BarIlanPreMed.com or contact publicist Fern Reiss at Fern@BarIlanPreMed.com.