A World Leader in Medical Research and Innovation
11 June 2016
Israel is famous for its innovative approach and its new inventions that affect the lives of people around the world. In the field of medical research practice and ethics, Shaare Zedek Medical Centre Jerusalem is a world leader.
Last month, Shaare Zedek hosted its first Annual Research Conference to promote the hospital’s leading academic studies.
400 doctors and researchers from various disciplines attended the conference held in collaboration with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Over 180 academic posters were presented.
The conference highlighted Shaare Zedek’s developing reputation as a medical research pioneer in Israel and internationally.
Shaare Zedek Director General Professor Jonathan Halevy opened the conference and shared, “Shaare Zedek has been blessed to advance many studies that are changing the face of medical practice around the world and we deeply appreciate that any major medical centre in today’s day and age must place research progress as a main objective in our mandate to serve the public.
“In the last decade Shaare Zedek doubled its activities across all areas including research. In 2015 alone, researchers from Shaare Zedek were involved in 350 studies which were published across an array of medical journals. The management of the hospital sees great importance in research and encourages our doctors to engage in research, which is one of the four fundamental pillars of the hospital– saving lives and healing patients, relieving physical and mental suffering, and training the next generation of doctors and nurses.
“There are many research efforts across the various areas of the hospital supported by the hospital’s Research Coordination Unit under the Direction of Shaare Zedek Assistant Director General for Research and Development Professor Dan Turner, which encourages doctors and researchers to initiate and conduct research efforts across all areas and we have made significant investments to support these efforts.”
Israel’s Minister of Health, MK Yaakov Litzman attended the conference and called upon the Ministry of Finance to significantly increase funding for research saying, “without research there is no medicine.”
During the conference, over a dozen researchers from Shaare Zedek presented studies which ranged from the development of new pharmaceutical agents and diagnostic techniques to innovative approaches for the use of technology in patient tracking.
Professor Alberto Gabizon Professor of Oncology at Shaare Zedek Medical Center, featured prominently at the conference. Prof Gabizon is a renowned scientist and clinician in the field of nanomedicine and cancer therapy and is co-inventor and co-developer of Doxil®, a smart chemotherapy “drug carrier” with tumor-targeting properties and important safety advantages.
Attendees at the conference also had the opportunity to view a presentation of academic posters featuring the latest studies by Shaare Zedek researchers. In addition, a 200-page compilation of abstracts of current ongoing studies was released. These abstracts included important contributions from Australian born Dr Oded Olsha and Dr Nathan Cherny regarding the latest research into genetic predispositions and effectiveness of treatments for breast cancer.
MK Litzman commended Shaare Zedek saying, “May you continue to do great things for the people of Israel.”