Faculty of Medicine Newsletter 47 (August 5 - September 1, 2021)

לניוזלטרים בעברית לחץ כאן.

For PDF version, click here.

Pomegranate

Warmest wishes for a healthy, happy, and successful new year, 5782

Faculty New Year l’Chayim

On August 30, 2021, academic, clinical, and administrative staff alike convened –in person and via Zoom – to welcome in the new Jewish year, 5782 (תשפ"ב). The Dean, Prof. Karl Skorecki, addressed the audience with a timely Dvar Torah and touching poem written by his colleague and poet, Natan Katvan z”l.

At the gathering, the following new members of the Azrieli Faculty of Medicine “family” were introduced:

Yafit Reuven * Malka Bulman * Chani Rubin * Riki Rivka Yehuda * Dr. Ron Orbach

And the following staff received certificates of appreciation for their hard, dedicated work this past year:

Hadar Oren Yavetz * Yuval Zalthberg * Moshe Chen * Tal Hava Nahmias

Shana tova!

Student Updates

Prof. Johnny Younis has shared with us a few student-related updates for the upcoming academic year:

  • After having learned from hands-on experience, and following the success of the “Corona-induced” online learning experience, introductory courses in pediatrics, OB-GYN, surgery, and psychiatry, will now be offered online and also in close proximity to the start of the students’ clinical rounds in those fields.
  • We continue to look for clinical fields and have recently added the surgery department at the Holy Family Hospital (Italian) in Nazareth to those who offer clinical education to our medical students.

New Course: Fundamentals in Drug Development

The Azrieli Faculty, in collaboration with Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., will be offering a new graduate-level course. The semester-long course will include guest lecturers and aims to cover the basics of drug discovery and development. For more information contact the course coordinator, Dr. Nir Qvit.

FL2F Workshop

The percentage of women worldwide who hold patents is in the single digits.FL2F

This summer, Bar-Ilan University and the Azrieli Faculty of Medicine hosted a “From Lab to Fulfillment” (FL2F.ca) workshop, under the auspices of the Rector, V.P. Research, the Gender Equality Unit, and the Faculty of Life Sciences.

Dr. Keren Agay-Shay explained that at the 2 week online workshop, which included homework assignments, the participants learned how to turn a scientific idea into a patent, a process very different from writing an academic paper!

The workshop was led by Prof. Orly Yadid-Pecht and was attended by Azrieli researchers Dr. Sivan Spitzer-Shohat, Dr. Keren Agay-Shay, Dr. Limor Meoded-Danon, Dr. Meital Gal-Tanamy, Dr. Miri Bentwich, Dr. Orly Avni, Prof. Orna Sasson-Levy (Dept of Sociology and Anthropolgy), Prof. Shulamit Michaeli (V.P. Research), and of course Prof. Karl Skorecki.

Kochavei Mechkar (Research Stars)

The Ziv Medical Center Research Institute, directed by Prof. Michael Edelstein, has initiated a new project to encourage research carried out by its health professionals. Prof. Edelstein pointed out that there is an appetite for research, but there have been few tools to carry the ideas to project and ultimtately, to clinical application. The project is competitive and for the first cohort, seven doctors, nurses, and lab scientists have been granted a modest budget to work on guided research projects. The participants will be offered lectures and will have mentors to assist them with their research.

Prof. Edelstein anticipates that within four years, Ziv will be able to boast some 30-40 healthcare workers involved in meaningful projects, improving the research capacity in the North.

GrantsItay Onn

Congratulations to Prof. Itay Onn on the receipt of an Ihel Foundation research grant. The research, to be carried out with Prof. Johnny Younis, is on the spatial structure of chromatin in ovaries, and its effect on premature ovarian aging.

Promotions

Congratulations to Prof. Johnny Younis upon his promotion to Full Clinical Professor.

Condolences

Condolences to the family of Dr. Milad Qarawany upon his passing. Dr. Qarawany was the head of the trauma unit at the Baruch Padeh Medical Center in Poria.

Website

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.

  • C Peles, M C J Rudolf: "Over-preoccupation with healthy food is perceived as worship of the body": Food, culture and beliefs in Ultra-Orthodox Jewish families (Appetite .)
  • Ayelet Shai: Feminism, gender medicine and beyond: a feminist analysis of "gender medicine" (Int J Equity Health .)
  • David Azoulay: Brain-derived neurotrophic factor in hematological malignancies: From detrimental to potentially beneficial (Blood Rev .)
  • Esther Levi, Ohad Ronen: Physician adherence to acute rhinosinusitis antibiotic treatment guidelines (J Investig Med . )
  • Amir Mari, Tawfik Khoury, Wisam Sbeit: Post-Diverticulitis Colonoscopy Was Not Associated with Higher Colonic Adenoma and Carcinoma: A Multicenter Case-Control Study (Medicina (Kaunas) .)
  • Wisam Sbeit, Anas Kadah, Amir Shahin, Tawfik Khoury: The Yield of String Sign in Differentiating Mucinous from Non-Mucinous Pancreatic Cysts: A Retrospective Cross-Sectional Study (Medicina (Kaunas) .)
  • Tzipora C Falik-Zaccai: Expert opinion on diagnosing, treating and managing patients with cerebrotendinous xanthomatosis (CTX): a modified Delphi study (Orphanet J Rare Dis .)
  • Khalaf Kridin: COVID-19 hospitalisation, mortality, vaccination, and postvaccination trends among people with schizophrenia in Israel: a longitudinal cohort study (Lancet Psychiatry .)
  • Evgeny Solomonov, Igor Waksman, Seema Biswas: Assessment of Global Health Education: The Role of Multiple-Choice Questions (Front Public Health . )
  • Tamar Hareuveni-Blum: Uveitis following the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 infection: a possible association (Retina .)
  • Seema Biswas, Oren Dahan, Evgeny Solomonov, Igor Waksman, Orit Braun Benyamin: Advancing global health through engineering: a perspective on teaching an online global health course to engineers during a global pandemic (Biomed Eng Online .)
  • Matan Kyzer, Liza Grosman-Rimon, Fabio Kusniec, Offer Amir, Shemy Carasso:Factors associated with prehospital delay in patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (Coron Artery Dis .)
  • Ala Aiob, Hector I Cohen, Karina Naskovica, Renee Tendler, Avishalom Sharon, Jacob Bornstein: Coexisting Epithelioid Trophoblastic Tumor and Placental Site Trophoblastic Tumor During Asymptomatic Relapse: A Case Report and Literature Review (Int J Gynecol
  • Nimrod Rahamimov, Elite Arnon-Sheleg: Identifying Multi-Level Vertebral Compression Fractures Following a Convulsive Seizure (Isr Med Assoc J . )
  • Wisam Sbeit, Amir Mari, Tawfik Khoury: Gastroenterologists attitude in various clinical settings in the era of COVID-19 pandemic: An online Uni-National Israeli Survey (Medicine (Baltimore) . )
  • Ariela Goldenshluger, Nasser Sakran: Weight Loss Outcomes and Lifestyle Patterns Following Sleeve Gastrectomy: an 8-Year Retrospective Study of 212 Patients (Obes Surg . )
  • Kamal Abu Jabal, Hila Ben-Amram, Karine Beiruti, Ira Brimat, Ashraf Abu Saada, Younes Bathish, Christian Sussan, Salman Zarka, Michael Edelstein: SARS-CoV-2 Immunogenicity in individuals infected before and after COVID-19 vaccination: Israel, January-March 2021 (Epidemiol Infect . )
  • Nagib Dally, Celia Suriu, Andrei Braester, Shay Yeganeh: COVID-19 among patients with hematological malignancies: a national Israeli retrospective analysis with special emphasis on treatment and outcome (Leuk Lymphoma .)
  • Khalaf Kridin, Eran Shavit: Hidradenitis suppurativa and rheumatoid arthritis: evaluating the bidirectional association (Immunol Res .)
  • Mary C J Rudolf: Between-country analysis of implementing an obesity prevention intervention using RE-AIM: HENRY in Israel and UK (Health Promot Int .)
  • G Lavie, M Kais, R Tendler, O Marwan, J Bornstein, A Sharon: Rate of hourly change in serum beta-human chorionic gonadotropin levels in ectopic pregnancy can predict the success of treatment with single-dose methotrexate: A retrospective observational study (Eur J Obstet Gynecol Reprod Biol .)
  • Wisam Sbeit, Anas Kadah, Amir Shahin, Samer Shbat, Moeen Sbeit, Tawfik Khoury: Scheduled percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy tube replacement did not reduce PEG-related complications (Scand J Gastroenterol .)
  • Layan Abu Rahmoun, Maya Azrad, Avi Peretz: Antibiotic Resistance and Biofilm Production Capacity in Clostridioides difficile (Front Cell Infect Microbiol .)
  • Erez Kachel, Keren Constantini, Shemy Carasso: A Pilot Study of Blood Pressure Monitoring After Cardiac Surgery Using a Wearable, Non-invasive Sensor (Front Med (Lausanne) .)
  • Offir Ertracht, Tal Reuveni, Shaul Atar: Vasodilation and blood pressure-lowering effect mediated by 5,6-EEQ lactone in 5/6 nephrectomy hypertensive rats (Biochim Biophys Acta Mol Cell Biol Lipids .)
  • Amir Mari, Tawifik Khoury: The Inflammatory Bowel Disease Disk Application: A Platform to Assess Patients Priorities and Expectations from Treatment (J Dig Dis)
  • Khalaf Kridin: Assessment of Treatment Approaches and Outcomes in Stevens-Johnson Syndrome and Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis: Insights From a Pan-European Multicenter Study (JAMA Dermatol . )
  • Nikola Lukic, Stefanie Lapetina, Kolluru D Srikanth, Shams Twafra, Jonathan Solomon, Tal Sneh, Michal Gendler, Hava Gil-Henn: Pyk2 regulates cell-edge protrusion dynamics by interacting with Crk (Mol Biol Cell . )
  • Karl Skorecki: Ancestral patterns of recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa mutations in Hispanic populations suggest sephardic ancestry (Am J Med Genet A .)
  • Orly Weissberg, Evan Elliott: The Mechanisms of CHD8 in Neurodevelopment and Autism Spectrum Disorders (Genes (Basel) . )
  • Chaim Putterman: TWEAKing the Hippocampus: The Effects of TWEAK on the Genomic Fabric of the Hippocampus in a Neuropsychiatric Lupus Mouse Model (Genes (Basel) .)
  • Jonathan Solomon, Hava Gil-Henn: Are We Ready for Migrastatics? (Cells . )
  • Trishna Saha, Hava Gil-Henn: Invadopodia, a Kingdom of Non-Receptor Tyrosine Kinases (Cells .)
  • Trishna Saha, Jonathan Solomon, Abraham O Samson, Hava Gil-Henn: Invasion and Metastasis as a Central Hallmark of Breast Cancer (J Clin Med . )
  • Offer Amir: Predictors of Hypoxemia and Related Adverse Outcomes in Patients Hospitalized with COVID-19: A Double-Center Retrospective Study (J Clin Med .)
  • Amir Mari, Tawfik Khoury: Diagnosis and Management of Achalasia: Updates of the Last Two Years (J Clin Med . )
  • Maamoun Basheer, Elias Saad, Hagai Rechnitzer, Simona Zisman-Rozen, David Azoulay, Nimer Assy: Clearance of the SARS-CoV-2 Virus in an Immunocompromised Patient Mediated by Convalescent Plasma without B-Cell Recovery (Int J Mol Sci .)
  • Yahel Shemesh, Orna Nitzan, Maya Azrad, Avi Peretz: Tinea capitis in an immigrant pediatric community; a clinical signs-based treatment approach (BMC Pediatr .)
  • Rela Oved, Gavi Jankelowitz, Sondra Turjeman, Omry Koren: Molecular genetics for probiotic engineering: dissecting lactic acid bacteria (Trends Microbiol . )
  • William Nseir, Jihad Njidat, Amir Amara, Avi Peretz, Hazem Kahatib, Amir Mari, Mahmud Mahamid, Raymond Farah: Serum Albumin to Creatinine Ratio as Predictor for 30-Day All-Cause Mortality in Patients with Clostridium Dificile- Associated Diarrhea (Ann Clin Lab Sci .)
  • Offer Amir: Improving Diuretic Response in Heart Failure by Implementing a Patient-Tailored Variability and Chronotherapy-Guided Algorithm (Front Cardiovasc Med . )
  • Sumit Mukherjee, Rajesh Detroja, Deepak Balamurali, Alessandro Gorohovski, Milana Frenkel-Morgenstern: Computational analysis of sense-antisense chimeric transcripts reveals their potential regulatory features and the landscape of expression in human cells (NAR Genom Bioinform . )
  • Enav Yefet: Oral analgesia in fixed-time interval administration versus spinal morphine for post-Cesarean pain: a randomised controlled trial (Arch Gynecol Obstet . )

Faculty News

Family Medicine Diploma CeremonyElias Srour

  • Certificates of completion were presented to participants in the Family Medicine diploma course (Pictured: Dr. Elias Srour). 

Faculty Exposure 

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