A Spirit of Collaboration Prevails in the Desert
A Spirit of Collaboration Prevails in the Desert
March 24, 2009
Medical Research, Negev Development & Community Programs
Does the immune system hold the key to treating type one diabetes, leading to a time when insulin may no longer need to be administered?
Does immunology also hold the promise for a vaccination against Alzheimer’s disease? And what are the discoveries in genetics that have led to halving the infant mortality rate among the Bedouin in Israel’s Negev desert?
Critical research questions—and remarkable breakthroughs—characterize the work of universities in the north, center and south of Israel. For such a small country, it strikes me as noteworthy that Israel should have universities in every major region, and that those universities should display such local character at the same time that they have global impact.
The promising research on Alzheimer’s and diabetes, and the landmark work on the identification and testing for genetic disorders, demonstrate that public health is a major stock in trade of academics at Ben-Gurion University.
The work seems to go hand-in-glove with the region, an area of Israel populated by relatively disadvantaged Jewish immigrants, and by traditional, and generally poor, Bedouin.
In the case of Ben-Gurion, the institution in the desert created to realize the dream of bringing development to Israel’s harsh periphery, a spirit of pioneering adventure, coupled with a willingness to collaborate, seems to permeate.
Though he collaborates with Harvard University and University of Colorado, among other institutions, Dr. Eli Lewis [of BGU’s Faculty of Health Sciences] chooses to conduct his diabetes research in a place some consider relatively isolated.
“It’s the collegial atmosphere here that makes the difference,” he said. “People in different departments at universities in the major population centers of the country don’t always work in a spirit of openness and collaboration. Here it’s different.”
JUF News is published monthly by the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago. Aaron Cohen is participating on Americans for Ben-Gurion University’s Fourth Annual Murray Fromson Media Mission.
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