In February 2025, Instruct-ERIC Director Prof. Harald Schwalbe visited the Instruct-ERIC center in Israel.
He spent 3 days at the Weizmann Institute for Science in Rehovot, exchanging ideas on the impact of integrated structural biology in life science. On his first day, as a guest of Prof. Lucio Frydman, he gave a Chemistry Faculty Lecture on “Integrated Structural Biology to Unravel the Impact of Synonymous Mutations on Protein Folding.” Following this, he had a chance to meet, one-on-one, with scientists in the Chemistry and Life Science Faculties.
Weizmann Institute of Science
On day two, with Prof. Joel Sussman, Schwalbe visited the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology in Jerusalem. There, he met with members of the Instruct-ERIC council and senior ministry members, including Prof. Avi Domb, Dr. Iris Eisenberg, and Mr. Barak Gatenyo. The exchange emphasised the “importance of fruitful European collaborations in integrated structural biology. Thanks to the vivid community in Israel and the ability to host sciences, the future for Instruct_ERIC in Israel remains bright. The ministry representatives are happy to support the future direction of Instruct in the years to come."
On his third day at the Weizmann, Schwalbe met with the Directors of the Israel Research Core Facilities (IRCF), Ms. Tsiona Elkayam Cohen, and Ms. Dorit Harut. He also met with Prof. Robert Fluhr, Head of the Life Science Core Facility, and Dr. Haim Barr, Head Drug Discovery at the Grand Israel National Center for Personalized Medicine (G-INCPM).
Prof. Schwalbe met with several team members in Israel, including Prof Robert Fluhr (Left), and Prof. Tamar Unger (Right).
He then visited the the Israel Structural Proteomics Center (accessible through Instruct-ERIC here), where he met Dr. Tamar Unger, Dr. Yoav Peleg, Dr. Shira Albeck, and Dr. Orly Dym. They exchanged ideas on the impact of Instruct-ERIC on the ISPC and Israeli science. He then had a tour of the state-of-the-art Liquid Metal Jet X-ray Diffraction System, which can collect data at cryo and room temperatures. Finally, he visited Weizmann’s cryo-EM facility, where he met Dr. Nadav Elad, Dr. Sharon Wolf and Dr. Roman Kamyshinsky members of the Chemical Research Support. He saw three high-end single-particle cryoEM instruments and discussed cryo-electron tomography (cryoET) research.
The trip was beneficial for both Prof. Schwalbe and the Israeli scientific community - find out more about the Weizmann Institute of Science and Instruct here.