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About this episode

In this powerful episode, we dive deep into the heart of one of the world’s most prestigious scientific institutions—the Weizmann Institute—and explore how cutting-edge innovation, visionary philanthropy, and unwavering resilience are shaping the future of medicine and humanity. From revolutionary MD-PhD programs redefining medical education, to breakthrough blood cancer detection methods published in Nature, to the relentless spirit of scientists rebuilding amidst adversity—this conversation is a testament to hope, courage, and the pursuit of progress against all odds. Join us as we uncover how the legacy of scientific excellence is being fiercely protected and propelled forward, inviting you to be part of a movement that transcends generations and changes the course of human health forever.

About the Weizmann Institute of Science

The Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, is one of the world’s top-ranking multidisciplinary research and graduate institutions. Committed to science for the future of humanity, the scientific community of nearly 5,000 engages in best-in-class exploratory research that leads to breakthrough advances in health and medicine, brain and neural science, environmental sustainability, renewable energy, food security, space exploration, quantum computing, artificial intelligence, and education. 

The American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science shares the Institute’s devotion to advancing world-changing science, partnering with generous individuals, foundations, and corporations to help Weizmann scientists answer some of the most difficult questions facing humanity. Learn more at WEIZMANNUSA.ORG. 

What happened on June 15

During the early hours of June 15, the Weizmann campus was devastated by two direct hits from ballistic missiles launched by Iran as part of a broad attack on Israel’s civilian infrastructure.

Five major research buildings were destroyed or significantly damaged. More than 50 labs have been impacted, many losing years of scientific progress in areas that include cancer, life sciences,  and computer science. 400 international students have been displaced. Early estimates for the total cost of damages range between $300 million and $500 million. 

(View video footage from Kan News)

What now?

The Institute and its global community maintain their resolve that the science must go on because it is critical to addressing some of humanity’s most pressing and widespread challenges. Currently, they are engaging in a global fundraising effort that is essential to providing immediate relief and propelling their long-term rebuilding plans. 

With such significant damage, philanthropists have an opportunity to play a greater role in world-changing science than ever before. Now is the time to talk to the American Committee about making a gift to the Emergency and Recovery Fund, and do something bold, great, and lasting. 

Contact CEO@acwis.org to support the Emergency and Recovery Fund.

About this guest

Dave Doneson has been CEO of the American Committee for the  Weizmann Institute of Science since September 2018. Under Dave’s  leadership, the American Committee has significantly expanded its  outreach on behalf of the Institute, advocating for some of the most  innovative, transformational, and essential scientific research in the  world today. Weizmann’s generous donors have responded in kind,  increasing their philanthropic support of science for the future of humanity to record levels. 

Prior to joining the American Committee, Dave was Chief Development  Officer of the American Technion Society (ATS), where he led a team  of more than 30 fundraising professionals focused on frontline  fundraising for the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. He  previously served as Director of Development for the University of  Michigan Health System, where he managed teams focused on major  gifts fundraising. 

Dave holds a Bachelor of Business Administration with Distinction  from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. He attended  Yale University, taking a leave of absence to live in Israel, and  previously attended Phillips Academy. He served as a lone soldier in  the Israel Defense Forces as a Sergeant in the Armor Corps.

Connect with this guest

1. Contact CEO@acwis.org to support the Emergency and Recovery Fund.
2. WEIZMANNUSA.ORG

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Transcript

This transcription was generated by Gemini & edited by ChatGPT

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Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of 9×90.

Today we have an absolutely amazing guest with us.

We have the Dave Doneson of the Weizmann Institute with us today.

He is the CEO of the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science, one of the world’s top multidisciplinary research institutions.

Under Dave’s leadership, the committee has significantly expanded its outreach and helped raise record-breaking philanthropic support for Weizmann’s pioneering work in cancer, neuroscience, AI, climate, space, and more.

On June 15th, the Institute suffered devastating ballistic missile strikes that damaged or destroyed five major buildings and more than 50 labs, disrupting years—if not decades—of groundbreaking research.

As the Weizmann Institute launches a global recovery effort and prepares to build a transformative new medical campus, Dave joins us to share how visionary donors who want to be a part of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity can secure their names in history by helping rebuild and redefine science for the future of humanity.

Dave, thank you so much for joining us.

My pleasure being here, Adi.

So, could you give us a brief history for those who are new to Weizmann?

I’d love to.

We were founded in 1934 by someone who was a scientist who went on to become the first president of the State of Israel—Chaim Weizmann.

He himself was a chemist. He had over 110 patents.

But he had a deep conviction that building the State of Israel would require a knowledge economy, and we’d have to have our best and brightest really tackling the biggest problems and creating the new data and knowledge sets for the future.

What’s interesting about Weizmann’s history—and what we actually are—is that the story of Chaim Weizmann is also the story of the State of Israel.

And what do I mean by that?

In 1915, the British were going to war in World War I, and they had a problem.

They needed to create cordite, which is smokeless powder. And that was being produced by the Germans—who were now their enemy.

The British had a national contest to look for someone to come up with an alternative method of creating acetone synthetically.

And the reason they did that was the Admiralty had done a study in which they would have had to take down every tree in the United Kingdom to create enough of this acetone for their war effort.

So, lo and behold, it came to this Russian Jewish lecturer at the University of Manchester named Chaim Weizmann, who in short order showed them how to do it.

And you could scale it up in gin and scotch distilleries, thus saving the British war effort for their navy and their cannons.

But the reason that was so important was when the higher political echelon in the UK went to Chaim Weizmann and said, “How do we repay you for saving us and for this monumental contribution to the UK?”

He said, “Please support my people’s right to a homeland.” That’s all he asked for in return.

And that became, two years later, the Balfour Declaration, issued by the Foreign Secretary, Lord Balfour, in appreciation for Chaim Weizmann’s efforts.

And so our institution, since 1934, has been based upon being an oasis of science.

We only do natural and precise science. So it’s biology and chemistry and physics and math.

We have 275 principal investigators, somewhere between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, in a town called Rehovot.

What’s unique about our environment is that about two-thirds of our faculty and their families live on campus.

So it’s kind of like a commune—with world-class science on top of that.

We don’t hire anyone because they’re a member of a certain discipline. And what I mean by that is, if a biologist retires, we go into the marketplace and just look for the smartest, highest-horsepower human being.

They might be in computer science or physics—so we hire that person.

We give them all the infrastructure, the housing.

Our campus has gyms and restaurants and nurseries and everything that you need not to divorce your family life from your scientific life.

And then there’s one other secret key. This is the secret sauce that Chaim Weizmann wanted.

We have no scientific mission besides doing the greatest science. So scientists can do whatever they want.

The president of the Institute doesn’t tell any academic what to study.

If they want to study the most amazing bird in the Amazon and be the best at it, they can do that.

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If they want to study cancer, they can do that.

And it’s really up to the scientists themselves.

I would say that those are the things that make up the Institute.

And I would just end by saying that the Weizmann Institute is widely known to the scientific community as the only top ten research institute outside of the United States in terms of its impact and the citations by other institutions.

And last but not least, we’re only a graduate school, so we don’t have any undergraduates. Scientists work with master’s students, doctoral students, and postdocs.

That’s incredible. That’s incredible.

You briefly touched upon it, and I think we should dive into it a little bit more right now.

You focus on curiosity-driven research. What does that mean in practice, and why is it critical to the scientific breakthroughs that you have coming out of the Weizmann Institute that are shaping the future?

Yeah.

I think the most interesting way of thinking about curiosity-driven science, as opposed to something more applied, would be: we’re interested in answering fundamental questions—kind of the questions that maybe when we were children, we would ask.

Why does the world work this way?
What are we all made out of?
What’s the relationship between time and space?

If you’re a really precocious kid—
Oh yeah, I have a 3-year-old.

“What is concrete made of?”
“Why is it ground into gravel?”
“How does that process work?”

Yeah.

If everyone’s focused on how to make the best app or how to make a computer slightly faster, or a material that’s slightly stronger and has better longevity, the kind of research we have tends to start from a place of: I wonder why this happens in the universe.

And the reason why this is important is a lot of these fundamental questions get into an understanding of the universe that we just don’t yet know.

I’ll give you some examples of things that have happened from the “accidents” of just the observation of fundamental science.

So what are some of the biggest things in the world, even in applied research?

Antibiotics.

The story of antibiotics and penicillin—it’s one of my favorites. Somebody is looking at infections, and you know, they leave a petri dish, go away for the weekend, and notice there’s some mold growing on it.

Lo and behold, it’s discovered that certain molds can fight blood infections in human beings and systemic infections—and that created probably one of the most major revolutions of the 20th century.

You have other things like—this is amazing to think about—someone in the early 20th century is asking: With atoms and molecules, do they spin in a certain direction? Do they go left? Do they go right?

They had no idea of any application of that.

It turns out they do spin, by the way.

Fast forward—it took some really, really smart scientists and engineers, and by the mid-20th century they created MRI machines, which now use that spin to visualize the systems of our body.

And it’s really one of the main diagnostic tools.

That’s what curiosity-driven science is about.

We like to say that it’s about doing revolutionary science.

We’re swinging for home runs, not base hits—which would be more evolutionary science.

And so Weizmann is a place where we want bold creativity.

We use the word chutzpah a lot, which for people who don’t know what that means—it’s Yiddish for nerve.

But it’s really just having the moxie to try and fail.

And our scientists really have a culture of trying and failing and trying again.

Yeah.

I have a degree in medicinal biological chemistry.

My final thesis—

Perfect.

Yeah. Yes.

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So I understand a lot of what you’re saying. We won’t dive way too deep into the science for those of you who are not in that realm. But, for my final research project, I proved that there was a noninvasive cure for coronary artery disease.

Wow. Amazing.

My professor warned me—“You do realize that a lot of open-heart surgeons will hate you”—but I was 23, and all I wanted was to figure out how to get the calcium out of my dad’s veins. When you’re young, you don’t understand the economic implications of science and scientific breakthroughs.

I could talk with you about the FDA all day long—that’s a whole other episode.

Part of curiosity-driven science is that no one is told what to study. They let their own curiosity drive them. These are very driven people who want to change the world, and naturally they cluster around compelling questions.

Since 1934, letting scientists work together collaboratively on whatever interests them has created eight blockbuster drugs—more than any other institution I’m aware of. These drugs have had annual sales over $1 billion, mainly in three areas: cancer, multiple sclerosis, and immune diseases like plaque psoriasis and Crohn’s disease. You’ve probably seen them advertised on TV—they came, in part, from work here at Weizmann.

That’s amazing.

What are some of the most impactful discoveries or contributions from Weizmann scientists that have changed the world?

In cancer, beyond drugs, we were the first in the world to successfully transplant bone marrow between genetically incompatible individuals—a breakthrough for treating leukemia and lymphoma globally. We also pioneered CAR‑T cell therapy—using the immune system to destroy cancer—which led to the first FDA-approved gene therapy for leukemia. We developed a noninvasive MRI technique called 3TP, FDA approved for breast and prostate cancer, enabling earlier tumor detection without surgery.

That’s incredible.

And outside biomedicine, earlier in the 1950s, we built WEIZAC, one of the first computers and the first in the Middle East. In 2022, we built Israel’s first quantum computer, WeizQC—one of only about 30 worldwide. We co-developed the RSA encryption algorithm with MIT, which underpins almost all secure online communication today.

We’re also partnering since 2020 with the UAE’s Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence to apply AI in healthcare, genomics, and more. In agriculture, we engineered protein-enriched wheat with 40% greater yield and developed safe methods to combat parasitic “Witch Wheat”—a threat to millions of farmers in Africa.

We also innovated a chemical-free method to clean polluted water, breaking contaminants down into oxygen and carbon. In prenatal genetics, we pioneered the in‑amniotic‑fluid testing used worldwide today for gene counseling. Meanwhile, a biopsy we developed can double IVF success rates when used beforehand.

We were involved in discovering the Higgs boson at CERN, and we’re collaborating with NASA and ESA on ULTRASAT—Israel’s first space telescope, which will deliver real-time imagery of supernovas, black holes, and other cosmic phenomena.

That’s just a snapshot—Weizmann researchers remain incredibly busy.

From your perspective, what is Weizmann’s role in driving progress for humanity in the decades ahead?

It’s pretty clear: whatever our most pressing human challenges—food security, climate change, water scarcity, sustainable energy—scientific and technological breakthroughs will play a critical role in solving them.

Quantum computing, fusion energy, advanced battery storage—all these advances will shape our energy future. Institutions like Weizmann, founded purely for discovery and the betterment of humanity, are vital. There’s no dollar goal driving us; the mission is to cure disease and better understand our world.

Yes, we have financial returns and an endowment from our intellectual property—especially blockbuster drugs—but that’s not the aim. The aim is discovery and impact.

As threats like missile attacks, research funding cuts, and short-term commercialization push against curiosity-driven science, safeguarding institutions devoted to open exploration is essential.

The smartest people in the world crave the freedom to explore. That’s what drives them—and that’s what institutions like ours foster.

I really wish every young consultant making funding decisions for big corporations would take a macroeconomics course—or a biological research class—before cutting funding, because decisions should reflect real understanding rather than only short-term returns.

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A lot of these young people come into the top consulting firms and start making decisions without truly understanding how the world works. Then, 20 years later, when a parent or grandparent is dying from something that could have been easily prevented, they suddenly realize—why did I make that budget cut when I was 23?

It’s important for people to understand that 99% of the pipeline for future FDA-approved products actually comes from places like the Weizmann Institute and other scientific institutions and universities. They’re not being generated by the pharmaceutical companies themselves anymore.

Yes, absolutely.

We know the Weizmann Institute was directly targeted in the recent missile attacks. Can you describe the extent of the physical and scientific damage? I have friends who invest in biomedical research—families from Guggenheim and Saad—who were devastated, saying decades of research and data were lost.

First, let me say—even though this is a tragedy for science, and it’s going to affect many lives, not just the scientists but also the patients who might have benefited from their discoveries—we were, in some ways, fortunate. The rockets hit around 3 a.m. and struck where the scientific buildings are clustered, not where our faculty and their families live. No one was injured or killed, and we’re extremely grateful for that.

However, two rockets did directly hit major buildings. One was the Ullman Building of Life Sciences, home to the Moross Integrated Cancer Center. That building was essentially wiped out. It will need to be either completely rebuilt or reimagined.

The second direct hit was on a building we’d been working on for five years—a new Center for Advanced Intelligent Materials, essentially a chemistry building. It was supposed to open this November. The damage was catastrophic. Renovation will likely take three to five years. Thankfully, because it hadn’t opened yet, no science was lost there.

Beyond those two, the blast radius from each warhead—equivalent to about 1,000 pounds of TNT—caused extensive damage to three additional buildings, including ones focused on environmental science and mathematics. Another 50 to 100 structures were affected, including homes, shattered windows, damaged HVAC systems, and our preclinical animal facility.

In the middle of the night, we had to restore ventilation and air conditioning for the vivarium because it houses Israel’s largest mouse community that we’re aware of.

Science loss isn’t just about buildings—it’s also about the loss of unique cell lines and cultures developed over 10–15 years, and custom animal models. Scientists were seen running into burning labs to retrieve ultra-low temperature samples. By noon the next day, thanks to the incredible solidarity of Israel’s scientific community, every available ultra-low freezer in the country was brought to our campus to save what could be saved.

But still, it’s devastating. This is going to be a five-year process, at least, to rebuild. More than 50 labs were impacted. Forty research groups are displaced. Many of our postdocs and PhDs are international—over 400 people and their families have been displaced and need temporary housing.

We also had to cancel our international summer science institute for young scientists. Now, we’re scrambling to find temporary homes for research groups and labs just to keep projects alive. But long-term, we have to rebuild, and it’s going to be extensive.

We’re estimating the cost will be between $400 and $500 million USD to rebuild all the affected facilities, replace the destroyed instrumentation, and cover bridging costs. The Israeli government will likely cover about a third. People ask whether there’s insurance for something like this—the answer is no. The state acts as the insurer and decides what they think it’s worth.

We’re already hearing stories of tax authorities telling us that a microscope purchased for $1 million five years ago is now only worth $200,000—so they’ll only reimburse that amount. But to replace it today costs $1.3 million. That math doesn’t work.

So we’re spending most of our time now reaching out—not only to our board members and long-time supporters who have helped us get to where we are—but also to a new generation of donors. People who want to take one of Israel’s crown jewels of science—honestly, one of the global leaders in scientific research—and help us build it back even better.

This is an opportunity to ensure what we’ve had for the last 90 years continues for the next 90 years. I’m spending mornings, afternoons, and evenings with our leadership speaking with major foundations and philanthropists about getting involved.

Many people, especially in their 50s, 60s, and 70s, begin to think about legacy. They look for opportunities to put their name on a crown jewel—in the arts, sciences, something that will immortalize their family name.

That trophy in the background of my office? My grandfather received that as an international director. He convinced multiple philanthropic organizations to work together to eradicate polio decades ago. Every time someone mentions polio campaigns, I get to say, “My grandfather helped make that happen.”

But what we have now with the Weizmann Institute is even more meaningful. This is more than a trophy—it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help rebuild a pillar of global science. It’s not just Israel’s crown jewel. It’s the world’s.

Donors can immortalize their legacy by helping us rebuild—with their names on laboratories, wings, or entire buildings. We have countless naming opportunities, depending on each person’s interest. Everything is bespoke.

At least five buildings need to be rebuilt or renovated. We have an extraordinary number of labs and instruments, and even opportunities to name professorships. There’s an almost infinite variety for philanthropists to leave their mark.

And I want to stress—inflection points like this almost never happen. We’re talking about a world-class institution with an unparalleled track record that just took a devastating hit from a targeted attack. We know we were targeted. We know that for a fact.

It’s sickening. This wasn’t just an attack on Israel. It was an attack on science.

Do you know how many people have lost family members to cancer? How many lives might have been saved by discoveries in those labs?

This wasn’t just a geopolitical move—it was an assault on human progress. There are hundreds, maybe millions, of people who may now die of cancers that might’ve been cured because those cures were destroyed.

Exactly. That’s what makes this so heartbreaking.

To be clear, what we do at the Weizmann Institute is basic science. We operate with the freedom to explore for the benefit of humanity. About 60% of our work is in the life sciences, and the majority of that is cancer research. We also study neurodegenerative diseases, among many other critical areas.

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We do a lot in immunology—multiple sclerosis and related conditions—and also psychiatry. But we’re not aligned with any military or doing secret research on campus. What happened is heartbreaking: they targeted and destroyed a cancer center, biology labs, and a new chemistry facility—spaces devoted to science for the benefit of the future.

I think there’s a real calling now for people who believe in enlightenment values—people invested in a better future for our children, in elevating our quality of life so we can live longer, fuller lives. This is an opportunity to come together as a community.

The Weizmann Institute isn’t a startup—it’s been excelling in scientific research since 1934. This generation has a chance to reaffirm faith in our scientific strategy, our scientists, and our track record. Who knows—the next major cancer breakthrough might be just around the corner. Any downtime in a lab—even three or four months—delays progress that truly matters.

Recently we launched a global campaign, Empower Tomorrow, a $2.25 billion initiative that began just before the attacks. Can you share how this campaign will accelerate research, drive medical breakthroughs, redefine donor impact, and adapt now that rebuilding is also required?

That’s a great question. Typically in North America, campaigns for fundraising—such as in higher education or hospitals—are finite: you identify priorities, raise a set amount within a specific timeframe, then move on. Weizmann initiated this for the first time in our history about five years ago. We moved into a public phase just last month in Chicago. Already we’ve surpassed 50% of our goal.

This is the largest fundraising effort in Israel’s history—and Weizmann is the smallest institution in the country, which makes it all the more remarkable. We’re deeply grateful to all our donors and board members who’ve helped us cross that halfway mark—but the recovery effort now needs to become a prominent focus of this campaign.

On our website—acwis.org—you’ll see a dedicated section describing how people can get involved in the recovery effort. Philanthropists who want to engage more deeply can contact me directly at ceo@acwis.org.

Since the attacks on June 15, donor interest has surged dramatically. We estimate we’ll need to raise an extra $300–350 million over the next five years to cover rebuilding costs, beyond the government’s expected contribution of around one-third.

Typically, we would expect to raise around $250 million per year—but now it’s closer to $320 million annually. The American Committee for the Weizmann Institute will be raising at least one additional year’s worth of funds just to ensure we “pull our weight.” If we exceed our goal, there are always new frontier projects that Weizmann scientists can pursue.

Funding scientific education and high-level research is not the best financial model—but it’s essential for progress. We educate students and conduct cutting-edge basic science. One of the buildings destroyed—the Deloro building—had cost around $150 million to build over five years, before even being fully outfitted. With instrumentation and other needs, facts push it toward $200–250 million. We have two major buildings like that, plus three smaller ones, and we’ve lost other capacities across the campus.

Money is vital now—having cash reserves allows us to maintain equilibrium. You need brilliant scientists, fully equipped labs, and the ability to recruit master’s students, PhDs, and postdocs to push discovery forward. If labs are destroyed and offline for several months, researchers may leave for opportunities elsewhere—Boston, San Diego, Europe. Our greatest concern is brain drain—losing top talent simply due to lack of infrastructure. We’re working around the clock to prevent that.

Exactly. Retaining top talent is essential so they can continue creating blockbuster scientific breakthroughs.

So, what are the cornerstone innovations this new medical campus will enable? We touched on how donor support will accelerate progress in health and cancer research. Longevity is another key emphasis right now. Would you like to dive into that?

Yes—I’d love to. We actually have a dedicated longevity center right on our campus.

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Of course.

So if we can bring out those scientists anytime we can, we can talk about the rapamycin and all the other stuff that they’re experimenting with. Generally, we’re building for the first time. Like I said before, we’ve always been a research institute — scientists with grad students.

We also, just as an aside, had something called the Davidson Institute, which is really about educating primary school all the way up to high school students in the sciences. And that’s about just creating a scientifically literate society, helping create a pipeline of future scientists to recruit, as well as, you know, it’s good just to have people who appreciate and like science. So we do that nationally across the country.

What we learned is that in Israel, compared to the rest of the Western world, the number of physicians per population was one of the lowest. Over 50% of Israeli medical students were leaving Israel to get their MDs. So there was a national effort to build more capability throughout the country to produce more scientists—sorry, more physicians. Well, that happened. We wanted to produce more physicians, but we didn’t want to lose those people to science.

So we created a novel program. We were generously funded by an Israeli philanthropist for our first ten years. That program will need additional resources, but at least they got it off the ground and focused. That is aimed at having an MD-PhD program in which scientists are selected. It’s all free of charge at Weizmann—no one pays any tuition at any level—and we give everybody a stipend and a scholarship.

So these students will come. They can do their PhD in quantum physics, biology, they can do anything they want. When they complete that, then they’ll go to medical school. They’ll get their full MD program, work with all of the important medical centers so they can get their clinical licensing and pick their specialties. The idea is we want these people to be the translators between the best scientists in the world who are working on biomedicine and what’s happening in the actual clinic.

Our idea is for these people to work in hospitals but then spend like a day at Weizmann or something like that working on science. That is going to start this Fall, I’m happy to announce. With the attack, I haven’t asked about the latest numbers, but I know that for a very small number of spots, like in the tens for our inaugural class, when they opened up the portal for applications, we got something like 2000 applications in the first week or two. So I think there’s going to be a tremendous appetite for this program. I think they’re going to be creating some of the best scientists and best physicians of the future.

Another thing that we’re doing is we’re building a biomedical village. This was kind of the vision of our president before the missile strikes. We want to create this beautiful integrated village where all of the clinical medicine and the faculty can be working alongside basic science. But the really fun model change for Weizmann is, you know, most basic scientists, when you ask them how to define themselves, if they’re in biology, it’s by their animal model. I’m a fruit fly person. I’m a nematode, I’m a mouse person. That’s how they define themselves.

What’s cool at Weizmann is we want this to be the place, because of where we are with modern technology and clinical medicine. We think that this could be the place where you can really study humans in real time. So you’ll have students studying to be medical doctors but working with real-life patients that are coming in. That’s kind of our vision: we can basically be teaching them what to do but also studying, instead of going through all of these elaborate models, go directly into humans when you know it’s not unsafe and see what you can do with that.

That’s amazing.

I remember when I was getting my degree, I was very blessed as an American Jew to know a lot of doctors. In the U.S., it’s like, are you going to go into real estate, be a lawyer, or a doctor? A lot of my friends who were in didn’t have this elaborate collection of doctors. They were just having to study theory when we were in undergrad. Whereas I got to shadow doctors in and out throughout their day.

Then I got to go to Haiti, where they have no doctors, and they decided that I was a doctor because I knew more than their actual doctors. I was like, no, I’m really not a doctor. This is not funny. Then they had me teaching their actual doctors everything I had learned in my first three years of biochemistry undergrad.

That’s interesting.

Oh yeah. That traumatized me.

There’s one unique thing. You know, Weizmann has to put a Weizmann twist on everything. I think it’s just in their DNA. So for their medical school, typically you get your medical degree and then most people would get a PhD in some medically related field to become an MD-PhD. That’s the typical course in the US. So we’ve reversed it in the other part—that they get their PhD in anything they want first. They could be a computer scientist who becomes an oncologist. So that’ll—that’s the way it could work.

But even the way that they’re going to study medicine—we visited Harvard Medical School, NYU, Washington University in Saint Louis and others to kind of say, how would we want to teach medical students that are super, super smart? They got rid of the lecture hall. They’re going to get people in smaller rooms together teaching each other with like a tutor, essentially the way that they want to do it. So even that has its own little twist; it’s not going to be, frankly, when my friends were in first year of medical school, I think they did their entire education on Zoom or just recording.

So it’s going to be very different, very different than lecture learning and recording.

That’s amazing.

I love getting to hear things like this, in contradiction to people saying that the medical system is broken. “It’s terrible. Once you get sick, you’re screwed. You fall through the system.” So it’s very encouraging to hear how the system isn’t broken; it’s just being refined where we will see the ripple effects of it within the next few years.

Yeah, I think that there’s my sense, as I know that you can listen to Peter Thiel and many people who are very pessimistic, that they’ve been telling us that the cure for cancer is right around the corner and all this other stuff. But I tell you that just between the advances in functional MRI machines and what physics has brought to biology and chemistry, we should be seeing a lot of really interesting discoveries at a pace we haven’t seen before, and then just the ability to take the amazing amounts of data that are created by microscopes and telescopes and then wed it to AI, which has this infinite patience just to review data.

That means you’re going to have a higher hit rate of gleaning correlation and causation from the data sets that you already have. I think it’s going to be a renaissance. I don’t really know any scientist at Weizmann that isn’t hyper-optimistic about where we are in the age of science, even though they might be lamenting that their lab was blown up. But when it comes to science, they’re bullish.

Yeah, yeah, I have friends who are not in the medical space at all and they’re like, “Oh, AI is going to destroy the world.” I was like, “AI has so much room left in the medical applications, until you see people living to the age of 500 and looking like they’re 30 years old. Like we have not even begun to scratch the surface on what medicine and AI can do together.”

It’s amazing.

It’s true.

Okay, so two final questions, and we kind of already answered one of these. Why is now the most important moment in the almost 90-year history? Yeah, 90 years…

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For philanthropists to step forward with Weizmann?

You know, you’re an expert in marketing. I am not, but I’ve always, you know, when I’ve talked with philanthropists and I ask them what is like one of their favorite lines in all of marketing, and they always go to Patek Philippe, the complicated Swiss watch company. They have that famous quote that they really haven’t tweaked that much, which is: you never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation.

And I think that when it comes to the Weizmann Institute, you’re really looking at the Patek Philippe, the crown jewel of Israeli science and global science that does things so uniquely, is so special. And I don’t think we all have to appreciate how rare these institutions and people are. This is a moment for a philanthropist, a visionary with character who has the means to partner with us and our faculty and our leadership to put our foot in the sand and say we are not going to let forces of regressive barbarism get in the way of human progress and of what we can contribute.

And so that’s what I would say.

I love that, I absolutely love that. My family’s been investing in real estate for five generations. And at the age of eight, you start attending meetings.

Well, because you’re learning.

Yeah. At the age of eight, you’re learning. You get your uniform — a blue blazer with gold buttons. So when you turn eight, you get your little blue blazer and then you get to start coming to board meetings because your career isn’t about you. It’s about prepping the next generation to continue to use commercial real estate development for economic empowerment and for good.

Yeah, the root of philanthropy is “philo” in Greek, which is “love of,” and “anthropos,” which is “man.” What greater gift to mankind could you give than investing in the future of humanity? That’s really what we’re about in every way. And so I think it’s an opportunity for one or more philanthropists to really make an impact of lasting significance.

Just making a note for another person I have to introduce you to.

Okay.

So for those listening who want to be part of something meaningful, what are the ways that they can engage?

They’re going to email you directly.

I’m going to just say right now that if we put your private email on there, you might get bombarded. So do you have a team of assistants that they could contact?

If they send it to the CEO, I have a team that can help me triage that. We read everything. I promise everybody we read and respond to everything.

Okay.

But it’s not just me.

Okay.

That’s why I was flinching earlier when you said, I’ll give them my personal email. I was like, oh boy.

Okay, so you do have a team that’s helping to filter that inbox over.

The same five people filtering. You know, we’re on social media. We have a website like I mentioned before. Please go on to it. Link our story to it. We’ve been all over the news. So, you know, the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, obviously all of the Israeli newspapers, many of the scientific press like Nature have written about us.

One thing I can leave you with, it’s such a powerful image for me: one of the leaders of our MD PhD program and his partner just published in Nature an article that suggests that they can look for blood cancers, in particular leukemia, without having to go into your bone marrow, just by a simple blood test.

They published this in one of the most prestigious magazines in all of science, and both of them just had their labs blown up two weeks ago. And so this goes to show you kind of what we’re dealing with here and the ramifications of it.

But look, we’re a resilient group. We’re not going anywhere. I think we’re more committed than ever to carrying the torch that Chaim Weizmann lit all those years ago and continue to help people.

Yeah, I know some friends who lost siblings when we were young from leukemia. So knowing that this attack on the 15th just reversed all that progress is really heartbreaking.

Hopefully not all of it.

I mean, the sad thing is I think whatever was in the cloud and computers are safe. I just think that a lot of the cell lines, the samples that they had, we’re still inventorying what we have left. And that’s what I’m worried about—some of these, you know, stories I saw in the Hebrew press. There’s a woman whose friend who passed of cancer gave her his cells to study. Those are irretrievable. Those are irretrievably lost.

Oh my God.

So stories like that are just heartbreaking.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, thank you so much for joining us today and for sharing all of this, giving us hope about the future of humanity and medicine, and letting our audience have a unique opportunity to immortalize their own family legacies through this unfortunate… it is what it is.

The only thing we can do now is rebuild, support, and make sure that we get back on track with getting all these medical developments back to bringing us to a better future.

Adi, thank you for having me.

Yeah. Take care, guys. I will see you back online next time. Thank you so much for tuning in.

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