Faculty of Medicine Newsletter 55 (December 31, 2021 - January 13, 2022)

ניוזלטרים בעברית, כאן.

PDF for easier reading, here.

Research of Prof. Chaim Putterman, Associate Dean for Research, on the cover of JCI

MK Idit Silman and MK Iman Khatib-Yasin Visit Azrieli Faculty Re the Russell Berrie Galilee Diabetes SPHERE

On January 6, 2022, the Azrieli Faculty of Medicine was pleased to host MK Idit Silman, Chairperson of the Knesset Health Committee, and MK Iman Khatib-Yasin, to discuss governmental funding of the Russell Berrie Galilee Diabetes SPHERE. They met with Prof. Chaim Putterman, Associate Dean of Research, and Prof. Naim Shehadeh and Dr. Sivan Spitzer who direct the SPHERE.

ERC Grant to Dr. Shai Bel

Congratulations to Dr. Shai Bel upon receipt of a 1.5 million Euro ERC Starting Grant for his research, “Determining the mechanisms behind goblet cell dysfunction.” He writes:

Millions of years of evolution have shaped our immune system, enabling it to mount an inflammatory response to virtually every microbe in our environment. Indeed, bacterial invasion into most tissues of our bodies will result in an inflammatory response, which is crucial for clearance of the invaders. Yet in our intestines, the immune system seems to be very tolerant toward the trillion of bacteria that colonize it. This is evident by the fact that most humans do not suffer from constant intestinal inflammation. To facilitate this tolerance, our intestinal cells secrete thick mucus which separates the microbes from the gut tissue. This separation allows us to benefit from a mutual relationship with our gut microbes. Research has found that in the intestines of patients suffering from inflammatory bowel disease this mucus barrier becomes penetrable by bacteria. This leads to constant contact of these bacteria with our intestinal cells and activation of an inflammatory response. In our study, we will explore this phenomenon, with the goal of understanding why this mucus barrier breaks down, how we can heal it, and bring these findings to the clinic to induce remission in patients suffering from inflammatory bowel diseases.

Prof. Offer Amir Appointed President of the Israel Heart Society

Congratulations to Prof. Offer Amir on this important appointment. Prof. Amir serves as Associate Dean, Specialization and Continuing Education at the Azrieli Faculty of Medicine.

 

Zoom with Izmir University Faculty of Medicine

Dr. Lilach Malatskey and Dr. Jumanah Essa-Hadad were invited on January 5, 2022 by Prof. Hakan Abacioglu, Dean of the Izmir University Medical School, to discuss Lifestyle Medicine.  Over 45 participants, including Faculty staff, students, and administration, joined in the Zoom meeting, which was chaired by Dean Hakan. 

Dr. Malatskey presented the Why, What, and How of Life style Medicine and the NextGenU Lifestyle Medicine Course that she developed. 

Dr. Jumanah Essa-Hadad presented the Azrieli Faculty of Medicine Lifestyle Medicine Spiral Curriculum.  In addition, she presented the Faculty’s experience with the Healthy Faculty initiative.

The participants expressed much interest, and the session culiminated with a Q&A session and dialogue regarding possible future collaboration.

Student-Related Updates

• Application season has opened, for the 2022-23 academic year four-year MD track. Last day to apply: February 13, 2022.
• The Ministry of Health with the Azrieli Faculty will be launching the Ilanot Medical Leadership Program. More details to follows.
• Bar-Ilan University Open House February 18 and 20 (Zoom), 2022.
• A new dermatology rotation has opened up at the Baruch Padeh Medical Center in Poria, led by Dr. Khalaf Kridin. It will take place during the Internal Medicine and Pediatic rounds.

Seminars

• Faculty Seminar: Mechanisms of gut microbiota-host interactions (Naama Geva-Zatorsky, Technion)
• Faculty Seminar: The complex relationship between RNA viruses and the type I interferon response (Dr. Ella Sklan, TAU)

New Faculty Development - Workshops Etc.

Prof. Peter Gilbey (head of Staff Development) has arranged for another round of important online clinical faculty development workshops, on how to improve clinical instruction (see bottom of this newsletter).

In addition, he would like to share with us:

• Later this year we will be starting a faculty development trustees course. This course will include physicians who will be hand picked by directors of hospitals and Kupot Holim. Following the course, participants will be able to lead faculty development in their institutes.
• Together with Dr. Yair Blumberg, we will be introducing "Osmosis" to the pre-clinical staff, and at a later stage, in collaboration with the Center for Teaching Development at BIU we will be offering help in combining this technology in teaching. At a later date we will be offering tutorials in "Osmosis" and "Amboss" to clinical staff.
• We are gearing up to participate in the "Kol Koreh" for the second round of BIU’s digital teaching initiative, in which we hope to gain funding for the conversion of some of our pre-clinical courses to digital courses. This is part of our general wish to modernize teaching and promote active learning.

Appointments and Promotions

• Congratulations to Dr. Hanna Keren upon her appointment as senior lecturer
• Congratulations to Dr. Liron Rozenkrantz upon her appointment as senior lecturer
• Congratulations to Dr. Zeev Israeli upon his appointment as clinical lecturer
• Congratulations to Prof. William Nseir upon his promotion to clinical associate professor

Condolences

Condolences to Dr. Edo Birati on the passing of his father

Website: What’s New? 

Publications 

Reminder that publications by Azrieli faculty are generally posted in chronological order based on publication date, per PubMed listings. If you have published an article recently that appears on PubMed but that was not listed in a Newsletter, I apologize, and please do let me know.

PLEASE NOTE: ALL PUBLICATIONS BY RESEARCHERS AT AZRIELI OR ITS AFFILIATE RESEARCH CENTERS MUST PROPERLY CITE THIS AFFILIATION: Azrieli Faculty of Medicine, Bar-Ilan University, Safed, Israel. IF YOU ARE UNSURE OR NEED GUIDANCE, PLEASE CONTACT US.

• Edo Y Birati: Characteristics and Outcomes of Candidemia in Patients with Durable Left Ventricular Assist Device Support (ASAIO J . )
• Offer Amir: Remote Speech Analysis in the Evaluation of Hospitalized Patients With Acute Decompensated Heart Failure (JACC Heart Fail .)
• Michal Sagiv, Mohammad Adawi: Response to a letter by M. Slouma et al (Int J Rheum Dis .)
• Limor Kalfon, Meirav Baydany, Nadra Samra, Nawaf Heno, Zvi Segal, Alon Yulevich, Hanna Mandel, Tzipora C Falik-Zaccai: Congenital Hypotonia: Cracking a SAGA of consanguineous kindred harboring four genetic variants (Mol Genet Genomic Med .)
• Sophia Eilat-Tsanani:Uptake of pneumococcal vaccination in older people in northern Israel (Prev Med Rep . )
• Chaim Putterman: The CD6/ALCAM pathway promotes lupus nephritis via T cell-mediated responses (J Clin Invest . )
• Nasser Sakran: The many faces of diabetes. Is there a need for re-classification? A narrative review (BMC Endocr Disord . )
• Chaim Putterman: Membrane attack complex (MAC) deposition in renal tubules is associated with interstitial fibrosis and tubular atrophy: a pilot study (Lupus Sci Med .)
• Amir Mari, William Nseir: Diarrhea due to parasites: a short updated point of view from the clinical setting (Minerva Gastroenterol (Torino) .)
• Helal Said-Ahmad, Amir Mari: Severe autoimmune hepatitis following recovery from COVID-19 - a novel mode of liver injury triggered by SARS-COV-2? (Minerva Gastroenterol (Torino) .)
• Tomer Meirson: The quest for optimal and reliable guidelines based on robust evidence for the treatment of cholangiocarcinoma (Hepatobiliary Surg Nutr .)
• Forsan Jahshan, Offir Ertracht, Netanel Eisenbach, Amani Daoud, Eyal Sela, Shaul Atar, Boris Fichtman, Amnon Harel, Maayan Gruber: Local Delivery of Mometasone Furoate from an Eluting Endotracheal Tube Reduces Airway Morbidity Following Long-Term Animal Intubation (ACS Appl Bio Mater .)
• Ethel Avrahamov-Kraft, Alon Yulevich, Yechiel Sweed: Pediatric Electrical Bicycle Road Accidents (Eur J Pediatr Surg .)
• Amer Saffoury, Ameer Elemy, Munir Hamze, Mohamad Elhaj, Maha Zaher, Loai Matanis, Zaher Anis Armaly: Waning Humoral Response 3 to 6 Months after Vaccination with the SARS-COV-2 BNT162b2 mRNA Vaccine in Dialysis Patients (J Clin Med .)

Faculty News 

MK Idit Silman and MK Iman Khatib-Yasin Visit Azrieli Faculty to Discuss SPHERE

New Medical Cadet Cohort Ceremony Takes Place Via Zoom, January 2022

Faculty Press Exposure 

 israel21c.org: New targeted therapy could treat lupus nephritis (Prof. Chaim Putterman)

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