Tag: Medicine

TAU to partner with InnoCan Pharma on revolutionary COVID-19 treatment

Written by AUFTAU on 21 April 2020. Posted in Newsroom.

InnoCan Pharma Corporation announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, InnoCan Pharma Ltd. of Herzliya Israel, has entered into a sponsored research agreement with Ramot at Tel Aviv University to jointly develop a novel, revolutionary approach to treat COVID-19 by using cannabidiol (CBD) loaded exosomes (“CLX”). Under the terms of the Research Agreement, InnoCan and a team led by Prof. Daniel Offen, a leading researcher specializing in Neuroscience and Exosome technology at Tel Aviv University, will collaborate to develop the cell therapy based product on Prof. Offen’s work in the field. InnoCan and Ramot are collaborating on a new, revolutionary exosome-based technology that targets both central nervous system (CNS) indications and the Covid-19 Corona Virus. CBD-Loaded exosomes hold the potential to provide a highly synergistic effect of anti-inflammatory properties and help in the recovery of infected lung cells. The techology, which is expected to be administered by inhalation, will be tested on a variety of lung infections. Exosomes are small particles created when stem cells are multiplied. Exosomes can act as “homing missiles” when the cell healing properties of the exosomes are combined with the anti-inflammatory properties of CBD. Exosomes also have an important role in cell-to-cell communication, which can be beneficial to additional treatments for CNS indications such as epilepsy and Alzheimer’s Disease.

Background

The world is suffering from a rapid rise in illness due to the fast growing spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. The lungs are the organ most affected by COVID-19, causing pneumonia that rapidly progresses to acute respiratory distress syndrome and can further result in respiratory failure, septic shock, multi-organ failure, and in the most severe cases death. Recent in-vivo and in-vitro studies have demonstrated that exosomes derived from mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) can promote regeneration and improve immune reaction processes in damaged tissues. Exosomes contain anti-inflammatory agents that can target inflamed organs. Prof. Offen and his team have already successfully loaded exosomes with various molecules. They have also succeeded in treating different tissue injuries in animal models, while significantly reducing inflammation and pathological impairment. To date, there have been hundreds of clinical studies using exosomes globally, demonstrating their therapeutic potential at different applications. Animal studies have also demonstrated CBD as effective in reducing lung inflammation. Based on these findings, InnoCan believes that its CLX therapy has the potential to treat the COVID-19 virus by combining CBD with exosomes, thereby creating therapeutic synergies. The suggested combination may have strong synergetic effects, thereby increasing the potential efficacy of planned treatments. Prof. Dani Offen, of the Sackler School of Medicine and Sagol School of Neuroscience said, “I am pleased to work with the InnoCan team on this exciting CLX development project. We are facing a challenging time, and I believe our unique approach holds a promise to offer a treatment for COVID-19, pneumonia and perhaps for other lung inflammations as well.” Iris Bincovich, CEO of InnoCan’s CEO, also commented, “COVID-19 has quickly become one of the largest challenges in healthcare today. With the development of CLX, we are creating a new treatment, to join the global mission to combat the effects of COVID-19. We are determined to make a difference as quickly as possible to assist patients worldwide.” Keren Primor Cohen, CEO of Ramot at Tel Aviv University, summarized, “We hope that this collaboration with Innocan will assist in transforming Prof. Offen’s promising technology into a real treatment for the global threat of COVID-19”. Featured image: Prof. Daniel Offen (photo: Jonathan Blum)

TAU Scientist Awarded U.S. Patent for Novel Coronavirus Vaccine Design

Written by AUFTAU on 20 April 2020. Posted in Newsroom.

Researchers worldwide are racing at breakneck speed to develop potential vaccines and drugs to fight the novel coronavirus, SARS-Cov-2. Now, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has granted a patent to Tel Aviv University’s Prof. Jonathan Gershoni of the School of Molecular Cell Biology and Biotechnology at TAU’s George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences for his innovative vaccine design for the corona family of viruses.

The vaccine targets the novel coronavirus’s Achilles’ heel, its Receptor Binding Motif (RBM), a critical structure that enables the virus to bind to and infect a target cell.

According to Prof. Gershoni, the vaccine would reconstruct the coronavirus’s RBM, a tiny feature of its “spike” protein. Though the virus uses many different proteins to replicate and invade cells, the “spike” protein is the major surface protein that it uses to bind to a receptor — another protein that acts like a doorway into a human cell. After the spike protein binds to the human cell receptor, the viral membrane fuses with the human cell membrane, allowing the genome of the virus to enter human cells and begin infection.

“We have been working on coronaviruses for the last 15 years, developing a method of reconstructing and reconstituting the RBM feature of the spike protein in SARS CoV and subsequently in MERS CoV,” explains Prof. Gershoni. “The moment the genome of the new virus was published in early January 2020, we began the process of reconstituting the RBM of SARS CoV2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and expect to have a reconstituted RBM of the new virus soon. This will be the basis for a new vaccine, which could be ready for use within a year to a year and a half.”

The spike protein is quite large, containing about 1,200 amino acids. Some researchers have limited their research to a region of the spike known as the receptor binding domain (RBD) that comprises some 200 amino acids. However, the problem is that these relatively large areas have a variety of targets, and the immune system produces antibodies for all of them indiscriminately – reducing the effectiveness of a potential vaccine.

The RBM, a highly complex three dimensional structure, is only 50 amino acids long. Functionally reconstituting such a structure would be very challenging, but it would be an extremely effective basis of a vaccine, says Prof. Gershoni.

“The smaller the target and the focus of the attack, the greater the effectiveness of the vaccine,” he adds. “The virus takes far-reaching measures to hide its RBM from the human immune system, but the best way to ‘win the war’ is to develop a vaccine that specifically targets the virus’s RBM.”

Prof. Gershoni’s team has completed their initial steps toward reconstituting the new SARS CoV2’s RBM. The reconstitution of the new SARS CoV2’s RBM and its use as a basis for a new vaccine is covered by an additional pending patent application, filed by Ramot, TAU’s technology transfer arm, to the USPTO.

“Now that we have received serum samples we should be able to isolate RBM-based vaccine candidates in the next month or two,” concludes Prof. Gershoni. “The discovery and production of a functional RBM for the new coronavirus is fundamental and critical for the production of the vaccine we propose.

“Our successful isolation and reconstitution of such a functional RBM will allow the industry to incorporate it into a vaccine, which will be produced by a pharmaceutical company. Development of such an RBM-based vaccine should take months and then would need to be tested in Phase 1, 2 and 3 clinical trials which would then take up to a year.”

Donated Equipment Aids in Urgent Coronavirus Research

Written by AUFTAU on 7 April 2020. Posted in Newsroom.

With COVID-19 coronavirus infections surging in Israel and worldwide, TAU biomedical specialists have dropped everything to push forward the fight against the virus. Eleven teams at the School of Molecular Cell Biology and Biotechnology are working to expand the arsenal of vaccines, drugs, testing methods and public health insights aimed at saving lives. Now, a significant and timely gift from philanthropists Sana and Vlad Shmunis of the San Francisco Bay Area is providing the School with much needed core equipment for the research push. “We needed emergency scientific funding and, when we turned to the Shmunises, both TAU Governors, they responded immediately and generously,” said TAU Vice President Amos Elad. “It’s heartwarming to see the concern of our TAU friends take such concrete form and so quickly.” The funding has gone toward the purchase of a new ultracentrifuge and a new high capacity autoclave. “This vital equipment will bolster the ability of our research teams to conduct molecular virology and immunology research much faster than before and with the highest quality,” said Prof. Tal Pupko, Head of the School of Molecular Cell Biology and Biotechnology, George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences. Among the School’s urgent research goals are:

Aiding the authorities focus quarantine efforts, understand if there are “super-spreading” infected individuals, and predict how quickly the disease spreads or wanes.
Screening Israeli COVID-19 survivors for antibodies as a basis for therapies and a vaccine.
Developing novel inhibitors for viral entry and viral activity.
Finding candidate compounds to kick in the body’s natural immunity to COVID-19 and ability to overcome infection.
Understanding lung immune responses to viral infection.
Introducing a robotic system for much faster detection of coronavirus presence in tests.
Repurposing known and FDA-approved drugs for prevention and treatment.

Among local and international collaborators in the research are the Israeli Ministry of Health, Israel Biological Institute, IDF, major TAU-affiliated hospitals, and universities in Israel and abroad including Stanford University and University of Washington, Seattle.

Boosting national coronavirus testing

In addition to the research, the School joined forces with TAU’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine to convert an existing lab into a coronavirus testing facility. The newly renovated lab will expand public testing and assist Israel’s overburdened hospitals. Professors, students, engineers and a construction crew worked 24/7 for three days straight to build the lab and bring it up to the highest safety and research standards. School members are also volunteering to operate it once the test samples come in. The lab project followed a move by several researchers at the School to help enlist medical students and biomed graduate students as volunteers for collecting and processing samples in hospital laboratories. The nationwide initiative recruited over 2,000 medical and graduate students as volunteers in the national public health operation.

Tel Aviv University Sets Up Emergency Lab to Expand COVID-19 Testing

Written by AUFTAU on 6 April 2020. Posted in Newsroom.

University has built an emergency COVID-19 testing lab, which will allow Israel to perform an additional 2,000 coronavirus tests per day. The new facility was born virtually overnight of the interdisciplinary efforts of TAU researchers, graduate students and management staff of the Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences. Construction for the lab began on Tuesday, March 24^th, at 7 a.m., and was completed Friday, March 27^th, with engineers, construction workers, professors and graduate students working around the clock. A Health Ministry official reviewed the lab to ensure that it meets health and safety protocols before commencing operations. “We realized immediately how critical testing was and how we at the University could contribute to Israel’s diagnostic landscape,” explains Prof. Ariel Munitz of Sackler’s Faculty of Medicine, who spearheaded the establishment of a testing lab on campus. “It was not an easy decision. It was unclear whether the Health Ministry would approve, and we did not know exactly what the protocol was or what was required – but we knew we needed to act.”

Getting ready to perform 2,000 coronavirus tests per day “We all understood that there was a national crisis at hand, and our first thought was how to help and contribute – we have put all other considerations aside,” adds Prof. Eran Bacharach of the School of Molecular Cell Biology and Biotechnology, Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, who is in charge of the TAU BSL2+ facility dedicated to studies of viruses and bacteria. Prof. Bacharach also helped coordinate a TAU volunteer initiative currently underway at Israeli hospitals. “A week ago we had to convince laboratories to accept our volunteers, but today labs are approaching us.” As a result of the TAU volunteer initiative, some 170 student volunteers are currently embedded in 12 laboratories in hospitals, including Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center (Ichilov Hospital), Shamir Medical Center (Assaf Harofeh), Rambam Health Care Campus, Soroka Medical Center, and HMOs across Israel.

TAU volunteers at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center (Ichilov Hospital) But after technicians at the Sheba Medical Center’s laboratory were quarantined as a result of exposure to COVID-19, TAU recognized an opportunity to contribute even further to Israel’s coronavirus efforts by performing public testing. “We contacted University management, who got involved immediately and quickly approved an emergency budget for the project,” says Prof. Munitz. “The safety of the team operating the lab is and remains our highest priority, and we are taking every necessary precaution in strict alignment with Health Ministry regulations. The goal was to design a lab that could process up to 2,000 tests a day, and we have accomplished it.” “Usually, setting up a lab takes 4-6 months,” concludes Ofer Lugassi, VP of Engineering and Maintenance at TAU. “To do so within a few days required the extraordinary efforts of project partners working around the clock and adopting innovative ideas, including architect Daniel Zarchi who designed the lab. Without the full mobilization of the entire team, it would never have happened. We learned and solved everything ‘on the go’: from building a new ceiling, something we didn’t anticipate we would need to do, to installing a complex air filtration system that normally takes about a month to set up. Everything was done overnight.”

TAU researcher checking the lab facilities Featured image: Prof. Ariel Munitz

Live Webinar: Corona Virus crisis and the future of Disaster Management

Written by AUFTAU on 31 March 2020. Posted in Newsroom.

TAU researcher launches urgent push to beat corona

Written by AUFTAU on 18 March 2020. Posted in Newsroom.

What’s more important? Privacy vs. public health

Written by AUFTAU on 18 March 2020. Posted in Newsroom.

On Saturday, March 14, Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu stated that the government intends to use various digital tools, the kind that have so far been used in the fight against terrorism, for the purpose of monitoring the coronavirus. His remarks remained vague and were not accompanied by detailed explanations, which raised many questions for citizens.

On the one hand, radical measures are being taken around the world to try to eradicate the coronavirus, including increased surveillance and tracking measures, in accordance with WHO recommendations. Apps and features that were previously controversial are being hailed as lifesaving. On the other hand, do public health considerations override an individual’s right to privacy? Is there a precedent for the state to surveil citizens who are not suspected of any crime? What will be done with this private information? Who will have access to it? We asked experts to shed some light on this.

Can your phone serve as your handcuffs?

On Saturday, Israel’s Prime Minister announced that among other measures being considered, there will be use of “digital tools, as done in Taiwan.” Prof. Itzhak Ben-Israel, head of the Security Studies Program at the School of Political Science, Government & Political Affairs and also of the Yuval Ne’eman workshop for Science, Technology & Security and Blavatnik Interdisciplinary Cyber Research Center said, “There are many options for this kind of surveillance. The simplest of them is to use the cellphone location function to make sure that the people who are quarantined at home aren’t leaving the house. Another option is to use the same location function to follow the path of someone who might be carrying the virus to see where they’ve been. This is a more intrusive option in terms of privacy. There are of course even more intrusive options, ‘Big Brother’ style. For example, it’s possible to track the ‘suspect’ who might be infected with the disease via the contents of their e-mail or social media, to find people the ‘suspect’ has been in touch with in recent days. In Taiwan, meanwhile, they’ve used the most minimal of the options I’ve mentioned: the use of the location function (as a kind of electronic handcuff).”

The concern: an irreparable violation of individual rights

“Israel’s Prime Minister didn’t elaborate on what measures would be taken, who would be affected by conducting the surveillance, and what legal framework would be used,” says Prof. Michael Birnhack, Deputy Dean of Research at the Buchmann Faculty of Law and also a researcher at the Balavatnik Interdisciplinary Cyber Researcher Center. “The state now has a number of legal tools to monitor people in various contexts, but there is no context that fits well with a general health emergency, such as the one we are in right now.

“Indeed, the emergency is severe, and Israel and many other countries have no prior experience in dealing with this kind of epidemic, but the right to privacy, like all human rights, is particularly important and is tested in times of crisis and emergency. A populist approach presents the situation as a dichotomy in which we must choose between public health and privacy. This is a false and misleading dichotomy. The democratic approach seeks to balance and, where possible, achieve both goals at once.

“The concern is that curtailing of rights will be difficult to fix, and emergency arrangements will remain with us long after the coronavirus disappears. To prevent such harm, the health system needs to be precisely defined. According to its needs, different tools available to the state can be examined, in order to find the course of action that last violates privacy (‘proportionality’ in legal terms).

“I can characterize some of these needs: First, the patients. They need the best care, and we all have an interest in reducing further infection. The patients’ privacy is compromised by the hospitalization. No additional follow-up measures are needed for them.

“Second, those isolated at home – the interest here is to make sure they maintain isolation lest they infect others. But here, the social solidarity, backed by the law that determines the isolation breach as a criminal offense, the ability to report someone, and the enforcement of the Ministry of Health backed by the police – are sufficient. Geolocation of people who are isolated won’t be effective. A person who wants to violate isolation will simply leave the mobile phone at home.

“Third, reconstructing the ‘path of infection’ for those who are ill. As part of the epidemiological investigation, not all patients remember where they were every hour from the 14 days prior to identifying their disease. Cellular data can help. But here, you don’t need the law. It’s enough to ask for their consent and, in my estimation, everyone will agree to give up their location data, to minimize the harm they’ve caused unintentionally.

“And fourth, locating those who have been exposed to a verified patient. Here, you need to be informed. Now, the Ministry of Health is publicizing the patients’ ‘path of infection’, but presumably the information does not reach everyone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Cellphone surveillance can locate them. This is where the idea of ’privacy by design’ comes into the picture. One way is that cellular companies transmit information to the state. This is a bad, disproportionate way. The goal is not to collect location information, but to inform citizens. So, the flow of information has to be reversed, so that the state asks cellular companies to contact those who were in a certain place at a certain time. The details are important, of course, and should be formulated in an integrated engineering-organizational-legal process,” concludes Prof. Birnhack.

In conclusion, responsibility seems to ultimately fall on everyone in society. It’s our responsibility to demonstrate social solidarity, to obey the instructions of official health agencies so as not to infect others, and help as much as possible those in our community who are afraid or are at higher risk. It’s also our responsibility to ask questions and not take for granted fundamental rights. It seems that balancing these two approaches will allow us to successfully overcome this crisis.

Can blood pressure in your twenties cause cognitive decline in your fifties?

Written by AUFTAU on 6 March 2020. Posted in Newsroom.

High blood pressure, or hypertension, affects everything from your arteries to your kidneys, from eyesight to sexual function. Among older adults, high blood pressure is also associated with cognitive decline as a result of interrupted blood flow to the brain, as well as strokes, heart attacks and impaired mobility.

A new Northwestern University–Tel Aviv University study has revealed that subjects who experienced relatively high blood pressure during young adulthood also experienced significant declines in cognitive function and gait in midlife (approximately 56 years old). The study cohort included about 200 young adults with an average age of 24 at the beginning of the study.

The research was led by Prof. Farzaneh A. Sorond and Dr. Simin Mahinrad of Northwestern University’s Department of Neurology and Prof. Jeffrey Hausdorff of TAU’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine, TAU’s Sagol School of Neuroscience and Tel Aviv Medical Center’s Center for the Study of Movement, Cognition, and Mobility at the Neurological Institute. The study was published in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation on November 21, 2019.

Thirty years of data

“We find that the deleterious effects of elevated blood pressure on brain structure and function begin in early adulthood. This demonstrates the need for preventive measures of high blood pressure even at this early age,” explains Prof. Hausdorff. “We know that poor gait and cognitive function among older adults are associated with and predict multiple adverse health outcomes like cognitive decline, dementia, falls and death. Our study shows that the time to treat high blood pressure and to minimize future changes in gait and cognition is much earlier — decades earlier — than previously thought.”

In addition, the study suggests that gait impairment may be an earlier hallmark of hypertensive brain injury than cognitive deficits.

For the study, the researchers assessed the blood pressure, gait and cognition of 191 participants from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults study, a community-based cohort of young individuals followed over 30 years. In the last year of follow-up, gait was assessed using an instrumented gait mat; cognitive function was evaluated using neuropsychological tests; and the level of white matter intensity in the brain, a symptom of cardiovascular disease, was measured using MRIs. The impact of cumulative levels of high blood pressure was found to be independent of other vascular risk factors over the same 30-year period.

High pressure leads to smaller steps

“Higher cumulative blood pressure was associated with slower walking speed, smaller step length and higher gait variability,” Prof. Hausdorff says. “Higher cumulative blood pressure was also associated with lower cognitive performance in the executive, memory and global domains.”

“Our takeaway is this: Even in young adults, blood pressure has significant implications, even at levels below the ‘hypertension’ threshold, and is important to assess and modify for future cognitive function and mobility,” Prof. Hausdorff concludes.

8 TAU Big ideas That Are Helping to Fight Cancer

Written by AUFTAU on 4 February 2020. Posted in Newsroom.

Ground-breaking research sheds lights on disease and treatments

Cancer is the world’s leading cause of death. It is notoriously hard to combat because it refers to 150 different conditions.

Multidisciplinary teams from across the TAU campus are working feverishly to understand the disease—its mechanisms and causes—as well as to develop treatments to slow and bar its inception and spread. The University’s Cancer Biology Research Center, for example, is the largest cancer center in Israel, with more than 600 researchers and 17 affiliated hospitals. These teams also work with international researchers at the world’s top institutions.

This World Cancer Day, here are eight of TAU’s top efforts to fight cancer:

1. Zapping Tumors: Alpha DaRT radiation treatment, created by TAU Profs. Itzhak Kelson and Yona Keisari (emeriti), from the Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences and the Wise Faculty of Life Sciences respectively, shows 100% shrinkage rate in tumors. Developed by Alpha Tau Medical via Ramot, TAU’s business engagement center, it’s the first technology to provide highly localized and effective therapy of solid cancerous growths using alpha radiation.

2. Bye-bye Biopsies: Environmental engineer Prof. Alexander Golberg, of the Porter School of Environment and Earth Sciences, and his team developed a safer and more efficient method of tumor profiling, an alternative to biopsies. It is called electroporation, the application of high voltage pulsed electric fields to tissues. In addition to avoiding the potential damage caused by excision in biopsies, this new method can garner more precise and relevant information to facilitate diagnostics and treatment decisions.

3. Vaccine for Melanoma: TAU scientists, under the direction of Prof. Ronit Satchi-Fainaro of the Sackler School of Medicine, have applied nanotechnology to prevent melanoma, the most aggressive and fatal type of skin cancer. “The war against cancer in general, and melanoma in particular, has advanced over the years…and now we have shown for the first time that it is possible to produce an effective nano-vaccine against melanoma,” says Prof. Satchi-Fainaro.

Prof. Ronit Satchi-Fainaro

4. Battling Leukemia: A new genetically encoded sensor isolates hidden leukemic cells, which may be more responsive to therapy. The sensor, invented by Dr. Michael Milyavsky of TAU’s Sackler School of Medicine and his team, could serve as a prototype for precision oncology which will help fight the deadly blood disease, for which the survival rate is “dismal.”

5. Breast Cancer Therapy: A ground-breaking study by TAU’s Prof. Neta Erez of the Sackler School of Medicine and her team pointed to a new way to increase chances of survival for breast cancer patients. The researchers discovered a mechanism by which breast cancer tumors “recruit” bone marrow cells to grow stronger; targeting these cells with new therapies could be an effective way of treating the disease.

6. Repurposing Drugs: An Israeli research team discovered that a safe, inexpensive and easily administered drug regimen can reduce cancer recurrences. Research led by Prof. Shamgar Ben-Eliyahu of TAU’s Gordon Faculty of Social Sciences and Sagol School of Neuroscience concluded that a drug regimen administered prior to and after surgery significantly reduces the risk of post-surgical cancer recurrence. The medications, a combination of a beta blocker (which relieves stress and high blood pressure) and an anti-inflammatory, may also improve the long-term survival rates of patients.

7. Blocking Skin Cancer Metastasis: TAU research revealed how melanoma spreads and found ways to stop the process before the metastatic stage. Prof. Carmit Levy and her team at the Wise Faculty of Life Sciences discovered how the disease, the most aggressive and lethal type of skin cancer, spreads to distant organs. Moreover, they found chemical substances that can stop the process and are therefore promising drug candidates.

Prof. Carmit Levy

8. HealthTECH World Cancer Day 2020: In addition to these landmark discoveries, TAU serves as a hub for cancer research. Today, ahead of World Cancer Day, the University is hosting a national conference on the latest developments in cancer research and treatment in the fields of biotechnology, nanotechnology and medicine. The conference will take place simultaneously with similar initiatives in France, Spain, Ireland and Portugal.

TAU study finds widespread misinterpretation of gene expression data

Written by AUFTAU on 27 December 2019. Posted in Newsroom.

Reproducibility of research data is a major challenge in experimental biology. As data generated by genomic-scale techniques increases in complexity, this concern is becoming more and more worrisome. RNA-seq, one of the most widely used methods in modern molecular biology, allows in a single test the simultaneous measurement of the expression level of all genes in a given sample. New research by a Tel Aviv University group identifies a frequent technical bias in data generated by RNA-seq technology, which often leads to false results. The study was conducted by Dr. Shir Mandelbaum, Dr. Zohar Manber, Dr. Orna Elroy-Stein and Dr. Ran Elkon at TAU’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine and George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences and was published on November 12 in PLOS Biology. “Recent years have witnessed a growing alarm about false results in biological research, sometimes referred to as the reproducibility crisis,” Dr. Elkon, lead author of the study, says. “This study emphasizes the importance of proper statistical handling of data to lessen the number of misleading findings.”

Removing bias from science

A main goal of RNA-seq experiments is to characterize biological processes that are activated or repressed in response to different conditions. The researchers analyzed dozens of publicly available RNA-seq datasets to profile the cellular responses to numerous stresses. During the research, the scientists noticed that sets of particularly short or long genes repeatedly showed changes in the expression level measured by the apparent number of RNA transcripts from a given gene. Puzzled by this recurring pattern, the team wondered whether it reflected some universal biological response common to different triggers or whether it stemmed from some experimental condition. To tackle this question, they compared replicated samples from the same biological condition. Differences in gene expression between replicates can reflect technical effects that are not related to the experiment’s biological factor of interest. Unexpectedly, the same pattern of particularly short or long genes showing changes in expression level was observed in these comparisons between replicates. This pattern is the result of a technical bias that seemed to be coupled with gene length, the researchers say. Importantly, the TAU researchers were able to show how the length bias they detected in many RNA-seq datasets led to the false identification of specific biological functions as cellular responses to the conditions tested. “Such misinterpretation of the data could lead to completely misleading conclusions,” Dr. Elkon concludes. “In practical terms, the study also shows how this bias can be removed from the data, thus filtering out false results while preserving the biologically relevant ones.”

Tag: Medicine

TAU to partner with InnoCan Pharma on revolutionary COVID-19 treatment

Background

TAU Scientist Awarded U.S. Patent for Novel Coronavirus Vaccine Design

Donated Equipment Aids in Urgent Coronavirus Research

Tel Aviv University Sets Up Emergency Lab to Expand COVID-19 Testing

Live Webinar: Corona Virus crisis and the future of Disaster Management

TAU researcher launches urgent push to beat corona

What’s more important? Privacy vs. public health

Can blood pressure in your twenties cause cognitive decline in your fifties?

8 TAU Big ideas That Are Helping to Fight Cancer

Ground-breaking research sheds lights on disease and treatments

TAU study finds widespread misinterpretation of gene expression data

Victoria

New South Wales

Western Australia

Tag: Medicine

The technology, which is expected to be administered by inhalation, will be tested on several lung infections

Background

The patent, approved in March, covers a vaccine that targets the most vulnerable point in a coronavirus’s structure, through which it penetrates human cells

Shmunis family gift ramps up the scientific capabilities of the School of Molecular Cell Biology and Biotechnology.

Boosting national coronavirus testing

specialized lab, run by TAU researchers and graduate students, was built in 3 days

Insights into the global shifts from a medical, ethical, economic, and mental health perspective – what lies ahead?

Dr. Natalia Freund is analyzing immunity of Israelis who have recovered from the virus.

Experts from Tel Aviv University answer questions about the coronavirus crisis.

TAU and Northwestern University study proves treatment for high blood pressure must begin decades earlier than it does now.

Thirty years of data

Ground-breaking research sheds lights on disease and treatments

Bias can be now be removed from data to filter out false results, researchers say

Removing bias from science

Victoria

New South Wales

Western Australia