News from Brazil

Friends of Weizmann announce winners of their sponsored scholarships for the ISSI program

Caio Marco Bego, a bioscience student, at the University of São Paulo (USP), Alexandre Fligelman Kanas, a medical student at USP, and Larissa Valdemarin Bim, a Biomedicine student at the São Paulo Federal University (UNIFESP) were the three winners of the scholarships sponsored by the Friends of the Weizmann Institute in Brazil for the International Summer Science Institute program, which took place between July 7 and 31, 2008, at the Weizmann Institute, in Israel. They participated in the summer program together with another 70 undergraduate students from around the globe.

An Evening with the Weizmann Institute

A lecture by Professor Benny Geiger on Cancer Metastasis and Cell Migration, and the presence of students Larissa Bim, Alexandre Fligelman Kanas and Caio Marco Bego, winners of the 2008 Weizmann summer program scholarships, brought together an audience of more than 120 people to the Hebraica club, in São Paulo, Brazil, for “An Evening with the Weizmann Institute”.

Professor Geiger informed the audience of recent developments in cancer metastasis research. Metastasis is the development of multiple new tumors from an original tumor, which according to him, is the cancer’s more devastating phenomenon. Larissa, Alexandre and Caio provided the audience with details on their participation in the summer program at the Weizmann. They expressed their gratitude for this unforgettable experience to the Friends of the Weizmann Institute in Brazil, which sponsored the three scholarships.

Ruhman family gives substantial endowment to the
Alternative Energy Fund

The Ruhman family will donate a total of US$ 600,000 to the Weizmann Institute over the course of three years. One half of the amount will be used in Brazil by the Alternative Energy Research Fund, and the other half, in a project developed by Professor Alon Chen, from the Weizmann’s neurobiology department, who is carrying out research on brain reactions under conditions of stress.
With this endowment, the Friends of the Weizmann Institute in Brazil have achieved 85% of the projected Alternative Energy Fund budget, which is mainly focused on promoting the development and creation of new clean energy production techniques.