The Weizmann Institute of Science

The Weizmann Institute of Science is one of the world’s leading basic research institutions. It is comprised of over 250 experimental and theoretical research groups across five faculties—Biochemistry, Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics and Computer Science, and Physics.

Visit the Weizmann Institute's website for more information about the Institute and its latest scientific developments

Scientific Achievements: Learn more about some of the incredible Scientific Advances from the Weizmann Institute

The Weizmann Institute Family: Connect with the worldwide network of friends supporting the Weizmann Institute. Global Network

Visit the Institute: To experience the very special world our scientists work in, let us help you plan a visit to the campus at Rehovot.

What does the Weizmann Institute do?

Insights that emerge from the Weizmann Institute's laboratories help provide a fundamental understanding of the biological, chemical, and physical world, and lead to advances in medicine, technology, and the environment. This is science for the benefit of humanity at its best.

Weizmann Institute scientists are credited with inventing breakthrough cancer drugs, amniocentesis, blockbuster drugs for multiple sclerosis, nano materials and compounds for industrial and medical uses, advanced computer technology, and breakthrough data-storage options. Institute cancer research has led to many discoveries, including the protein implicated in certain lung cancers, the basis for the drug Erbitux to treat colorectal cancer and head and neck cancer, a new potential therapy for prostate cancer, the gene that encodes p53—the tumor suppressor protein found to be dysfunctional in almost all cancers—and a protein that triggers chronic myelogenous leukaemia. The latter discovery provided the foundation for the development of Imatinib (known as Gleevec in the U.S. and Glivec in Europe). About 40 percent of Institute life science labs are involved in cancer research.

The Weizmann Institute is also an institution of higher education whose aim is to train the next
generation of world-class scientists. Its academic arm, the Feinberg Graduate School, is the training grounds of a quarter of Israel’s PhDs in science and maths. At any given time, the school is training 1,100 MSc and PhD students. Every year, it confers numerous MSc degrees, PhD degrees, and non-thesis MSc degrees to science and maths teachers through the unique Rothschild-Weizmann Programme for Excellence in Science Teaching. In addition, postdoctoral fellows work in Weizmann Institute labs, bringing novel ideas to the bench and creating future links to other labs abroad. Reflecting the international nature of science, the language of instruction is English.

The most important asset of the Weizmann Institute of Science is its people. It recruits some of the world’s leading scientists—Israel’s modern pioneers who are making major advances in the natural and exact sciences. Then it invests significantly in them, offering these investigators the best equipped laboratories and the opportunity to work shoulder-to-shoulder with other top scientists.

Science education is also a key part of the Institute’s agenda, which places great emphasis on improving science instruction in schools, enriching the knowledge of school-aged children, and ensuring literacy for the public so that society can best benefit from new insights and discoveries. The programming of its science education arm, the Davidson Institute of Science Education, reaches more than 350,000 students and teachers annually. The Davidson’s website offers science enrichment for users worldwide.