Archive | 2012 | May

Beaking news from Israel – tv host Conan O’Brien is a special guest at Madonna’s MDNA tour opening night in Israel next week.

US TV host Conan O’brien will come to Israel a day before Madonna’s MDNA TOUR, to have a special coverage of the queen of pop’s opening night show in Israel.

His “Conan” late night show got the exclusive deal to have a full covarage of the event, and it will be featured in a dedicated TV special. O’Brien will come to Israel with a crew of 20 people and will have 3 broadcasting teams.
The Conan show is being broadcast on US cable channel TBS.

In other related news, words are in that among the many guests Madonna has invited to opening night of her tour are Sacha Baron Cohen and Natalie Portman – both have families in Israel, and will arrive to the country in a few days time.

While haunting the usual advertising show-off sites, we spotted this work from Red Lion (the new-ish Publicis-owned “consultancy focused on creativity and strategy”) for Canadian Beef Bacon Corporation.

The hook: folks in Israel who keep kosher really wish they could eat bacon, and now there’s a way.

Client: Canadian Beef Bacon Company
Agency: Red Lion
CCO/writer: Brett Channer
Animation: Kemar Lawrence
Production company: FamilyStyle
Directors: Jon & Torey
Line Producer: Liz Dussault
Executive Producer: Harland Weiss
Editor: Mark Paiva/Posterboy
Sound and music: Vapor

Koplev after finishing the race (Photo: AP)

Jonathan Koplev becomes first Israeli to hold European championship title in men’s 50m backstroke; Guy Barnea takes meet’s bronze

Swimmer Jonathan Koplev became the first Israeli to hold the European championship title after setting a new personal best of 24.73 seconds in the men’s 50-meter backstroke and winning the gold medal.

Swimmer Guy Barnea joined Koplev on the winners’ podium, taking the meet’s bronze medal after setting a time of 25.15 seconds.

Italy’s Mirco Di Tora won the silver medal.

Koplev and Barnea’s double win, joined by swimmer Yakov Toumarkin’s winning the bronze medal at the men’s 100-meter backstroke on Wednesday, improved the Israeli team’s ranking in the championship placing them in third place.

“This is unbelievably exciting. I knew he could do it – he lived up to all of our expectations and more,” Koplev’s trainer Hanan Sterling said.

He added he hoped Koplev would represent Israel in the 4×100 relay race at the Olympic qualifications.

Source: Ynetnews.com

The South of France, The Beach, The Cannes Film Festival and TYP, can you think of a better evening… (Outside of all that in TLV)

Frank Sinatra believed that “Chicago is one town that won’t let you down”. In June 2012, Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design Jerusalem will find out exactly what he meant when the innovative exhibition opens at Sotheby’s in Chicago

The “Bezalel on Tour” exhibition featuring contemporary art works of recent graduates of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design Jerusalem will open on Wednesday, June 21, 2012, at Sotheby’s. The traveling exhibition, which made its first stop at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore earlier this year, will travel throughout North America over the next year.

This is not the first time Bezalel is partnering with Sotheby’s, one of the world’s largest auctioneers of fine art, for an exhibition. Last year, Sotheby’s London held a selling exhibition for the academy after curator Janice Blackburn visited Israel in 2010. After looking at student works and talking to Bezalel president, Professor Arnon Zuckerman, she felt motivated to take a selection of the best of past and present students’ works to London. After receiving rave reviews in London, Professor Zuckerman wanted to take the exhibition also to America. “This exciting collaboration with Sotheby’s befits our reputation as a world leading academy of art, design and architecture, where creativity, quality and excellence are the very essence of our history,” says Zuckerman.

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Israeli researchers score success in lung cancer treatment

The researchers find that introduction of BKT140 leads to the death of cancerous lung tumor cells and a reduction in the size of the growths.

Israeli researchers have identified a material that could help remedy lung cancer. In tests conducted by researchers at Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Kerem on cell samples and laboratory mice, the material shrank tumors by about 50 percent, and when it was used in conjunction with radiation therapy and chemotherapy, the pace of cancerous cell growth was reduced by about 90 percent.

The study was conducted by Dr. Ori Wald, a physician-researcher at Hadassah’s Cardiothoracic Surgery Department; with department head Prof. Oz Shapira; Dr. Uzi Izhar, director of the thoracic surgery unit; and Prof. Amnon Peled of the hospital’s gene therapy unit.

The researchers examined the impact of two components, a receptor called CXCR4 and a protein that cleaves to it called CXCL12, which has been identified in many studies as present in cancer patients.

In studies that they did on lung cancer tissue removed from patients, the researchers found that the cancerous cells contained both the receptor and the protein in concentrations that increased as the cancer became more advanced and aggressive. They later discovered that adding the protein CXCL12 to cancerous lung tumor cells made the growths more virulent.

The researchers then found that a material known as BKT140 succeeded in preventing the protein and receptor from connecting to each other, which led to the death of cancerous lung tumor cells and a reduction in the size of the growths.

The blocker was developed by Biokine Therapeutics of Rehovot for a totally different purpose – as a drug to be given to bone marrow donors to streamline and hasten the production of bone marrow cells before the donation.

Injecting the blocker into lab-grown lung tumor cells and later into mice significantly retarded the tumors’ growth and reduced their volume by about 50 percent.

“We injected the blocker into the mice, and it found its way to the site where the tumor was developing in the lung, where it helped reduce the volume of the tumor,” said Shapira.

In searching for a way to improve the efficiency of the blocker, they found that using it together with traditional cancer therapies reduced the tumors’ rates of growth by about 90 percent, in tests conducted so far only on lab samples.

In addition to radiation and chemotherapy, both of which have side effects, some cancers are being fought with new methods. These include focused biological treatments that use antibodies to block enzymes that encourage tumor growth; antibodies that damage the blood vessels that sustain the tumor; drugs that damage the casing of the tumor, thus preventing its growth; and treatments that boost the patient’s own immune system’s ability to fight the tumor.

“This blocker constitutes a new method for dealing with a tumor, by delaying the encounter between the receptor and the protein, although we don’t yet understand all the mechanisms at work,” said Wald.

The findings were presented earlier this month at the American Association for Thoracic Surgery conference in San Francisco, and the researchers are planning to submit requests to approve clinical trials on people.

Wald expects no problems with obtaining the approval, noting: “The material was already developed as a remedy and has already proven to have a high safety profile with few side effects.”

The researchers are working on another study aimed at identifying exactly how the blocker works to reduce the size of tumors.

Lung cancer is the second most common cancer in both men and women, and is also one of the deadliest cancers in the Western world, with survival rates of only 20 percent after five years.

According to a Health Ministry report issued in October 2010, lung cancer causes 21.5 percent of all men’s cancer deaths in Israel, and 9.9 percent of women’s deaths from cancer.

Source: Haaretz.com 

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