October 2012: One out of every eight women will develop breast cancer in her lifetime. It is the most commonly diagnosed non-skin cancer in women worldwide, and also strikes thousands of men. Though the three areas with the highest breast cancer rates are Western Europe, Australia/New Zealand and Northern Europe, Israel has taken a leading role in researching causes and treatments.

The Breast Cancer Research Foundation’s very first international research grant was awarded in 2001 to Shaare Zedek Medical Center’s Dr. Ephrat Levy-Lahad to do a comprehensive Israeli Breast Cancer Study, now an international model for genetic breast cancer prevention screening.

Over the past 12 months, ISRAEL21c has reported on exciting news in cancer research from Israeli laboratories. We present 10 of the most promising advances here with our hope that breast cancer may soon be relegated to history.

1. IceSense 3

IceSense freezes out breast tumors.The novel Israeli medical device IceSense3, made by IceCure, is already helping American doctors destroy benign breast lumps by freezing them. In June, a leading Japanese breast surgeon started clinical trials using the minimally invasive, ultrasound-guided procedure to successfully obliterate small cancerous tumors as well. Similar trials will soon begin in the United States.

The cryoablation process takes five or 10 minutes in a doctor’s office, clinic or breast center under local anesthesia. No recovery period or post-care is necessary, and there is no scarring.

2. RUTH

The Israeli company Real Imaging offers a no-radiation, no-contact alternative to mammography pioneered by electro-optical engineer Boaz Arnon and named in memory of his mother, who died of breast cancer in 2004.

RUTH uses a new trademarked platform that enables automatic quantitative analysis of 3D and infrared signals emitted from cancerous and benign breast tissue. Results are interpreted by computer, with unprecedented accuracy in patients of all ages — 90 percent as opposed to 80% for mammography. Thousands of women have been involved in clinical trials for RUTH since 2007. The next step is CE and FDA approval.

3. MarginProbe

Dune Medical, a graduate of the Misgav Venture Accelerator, in June received pre-market approval from the US Food and Drug Administration for MarginProbe, its trademarked system that uses electromagnetic waves to identify possibly cancerous tissue on the edges of a breast tumor in real time. The application was based on data from a 600-patient study conducted primarily in the United States.

MarginProbe is meant to improve on the current rate of 30 percent to 60% of women who must undergo secondary breast cancer surgery after a lumpectomy because the initial surgery failed to get rid of all cancerous tissue at the margins of the tumor.

4. Monoclonal antibodies

Herceptin, a frequently prescribed drug for blocking the chemical signals that stimulate uncontrolled growth of breast cancer cells, is one of an advanced class of pharmaceuticals called monoclonal antibody drugs. Currently, these drugs must be administered together with chemotherapy.

The two-year-old Israeli company Immune Pharmaceuticals is developing a “guided missile” system, licensed from the Hebrew University, which encloses thousands of chemotherapy molecules inside a monoclonal antibody nanoparticle. The drug payload isn’t released until reaching the cancerous tissue.

In addition, Immune is collaborating with the Weizmann Institute to develop antibody therapeutics targeting a growth factor that causes chemotherapy resistance in many patients with breast and ovarian cancer.

5. Better biomarkers

Tel Aviv University PhD student Livnat Jerby won a prestigious 2012 Dan David Scholarship for performing the first genome-scale study of the metabolic progression of breast cancer — an algorithm that can profile the traits of each individual patient’s tumor. These profiles help in studying the underlining mechanisms of the disease, classifying patients according to their prognosis and identifying potential metabolic biomarkers as a non-invasive, cost-effective means for early diagnosis and monitoring treatment efficiency.

“The Holy Grail of our work is to provide the basis for rational drug discovery, aiming to find drugs that — unlike most conventional treatments — will harm only the tumor, and not the healthy cells,” Jerby tells ISRAEL21c. “We had some success with providing a new potential target for treating renal cancer and published those results in Nature. With breast cancer, we can apply the same computational tools to better diagnose and choose the best treatment for the individual patient.”

6. An HIV approach

Two Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School researchers have patented a protein encoded by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) as a treatment to make radiation and chemotherapy more effective.

This small peptide, dubbed 25-39, inhibits a substance involved in repairing DNA damage from cancer therapy. It’s important to prevent such repair in order to wipe out the cancer cells. Now the search is on for investment partners to further develop and commercialize the product that already proved itself in the lab.

7. The gene that can suppress tumors

It’s long been known that the p53 gene produces a protein that can suppress tumors. In 2012, a team at the Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem discovered that p53 also governs a mechanism that keeps cancer cells from invading healthy epithelial tissue. Most cancers, including breast cancer, spread through epithelial cells.

Investors are being sought for clinical studies on breast-cancer patients. The long-term goal is to boost the group-control function of p53 to keep tumors from developing the capacity to spread.

8. Immunotherapy

Two therapeutic vaccines against cancer are under development in Israel.

Vaxil BioTherapeutics’ ImMucin, can be tailored to treat 90% of cancers by activating and enhancing the body’s immune system to seek and destroy cancer cells present in the body. The treatment causes no side effects, and can be taken indefinitely, like vitamins. ImMucin could be on the market in about five years.

Vacciguard another Israeli biomed startup, is introducing a technology for developing vaccines against cancer and a wide range of other diseases that currently have no effective treatments. The technology is based on the research of world-renowned Weizmann immunologist Prof. Irun Cohen.

9. Cancer “family trees”

Israeli researchers from the Weizmann Institute and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology used computational biology to chart a unique “family tree” of cancer stem cells from living patients. The chart will help determine exactly how these cells divide and spread, as well as how they can survive chemotherapy treatments and remain latent in the body only to reappear with a vengeance at a later time.

Preliminary results show that slow-dividing cancer cells are more likely to evade cancer drugs, whereas chemotherapy most commonly targets only rapidly dividing cells. The Israeli research points to a need for devising new treatments targeting slow-dividing cells.

10. Weizmann Breast Cancer Research Program

During 2012, the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and the US Department of Defense were among overseas organizations awarding postdoctoral fellowships at the Breast Cancer Research Program at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot.

Current projects within this program focus on better diagnosis and treatment options, such as using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in an advanced noninvasive method to detect malignant breast tumors without biopsies; and in evaluating the effectiveness of hormone therapy for breast cancer. Another Weizmann team recently revealed new details about a crucial mechanism that controls the first stage of breast cancer metastasis.

The following is the philosophy of Charles Schulz, the creator of the ‘Peanuts’ comic strip. You don’t have to actually answer the questions. Just ponder on them.

Just read straight through, and you’ll get the point.

1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.

2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.

3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America pageant.

4 Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize.

5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and actress.

6. Name the last decade’s worth of World Series winners.

How did you do?
The point is, none of us remember the headliners of yesterday. These are no second-rate achievers. They are the best in their fields. But the applause dies.. Awards tarnish.. Achievements are forgotten. Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.

Here’s another quiz. See how you do on this one:

1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.

2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.

3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.

4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special.

5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.

Easier?

The lesson: The people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with the most credentials, the most money…or the most awards. They simply are the ones who care the most. ‘Don’t worry about the world coming to an end today. It’s already tomorrow in Australia !’

”Be Yourself. Everyone Else Is Taken!”

Rebbe Nachman of Breslev writes (Likutei Moharan I:173) that the soul and emuna are one aspect. Consequently, one’s emotional health is directly related to the level of one’s emuna. We therefore conclude that emotional disturbances result from a breakdown of emuna.

Emotional confusion results from confused emuna. Emotional weakness is the outcome of weak emuna. This is a rule of thumb for all mental illness.

Allow me to clarify: I’m not referring to such mental handicaps from birth such as autism and Down’s syndrome. These are the result of Divine considerations and soul reincarnations, neither of which we are capable of understanding.

Yet, when we see that a person is born healthy, but at a later age succumbs to fear, anxiety, depression, and even schizophrenia, or any other mental or emotional difficulties, the root of the problem is a blemished emuna. But here’s the good news: if an emotionally-disturbed individual learns all about emuna and prays for emuna, he or she will recover from the ailment. The more a person corrects and strengthens emuna, the more he or she will enjoy mental and emotional health.

Every person – even the so-called “normal” person – suffers from emotional problems to a certain degree. In addition to fear, anxiety, and depression, people are plagued with boredom, lack of satisfaction, anger, worries, nervousness, and extreme mood fluctuations, just to name a few. Emuna cures all these ills.

What are you afraid of?

People are frozen with fear. They fear other people, their bosses, the IRS, terrorists, other motorists – the list is long. Any time they get a muscle spasm, they envision some imminent crippling or terminal disease. All these fears are expressions of a lack of emuna, particularly the lack of emuna that everything Hashem does is for our very best.

A person with emuna doesn’t fear anything, for he knows that he’s in Hashem’s care and that everything Hashem does is for the very best. This saves tons of emotional wear and tear; since Hashem does everything for the best, then there’s nothing to worry about.

A person than devotes an hour a day to self-evaluation, teshuva, and personal prayer especially has nothing to worry about. If a person is making his best effort at self-improvement, then why should Hashem punish him? Such a person doesn’t need wake-up calls, because he’s daily arousing himself to teshuva and to self-improvement. The result of an hour a day in personal prayer is increased happiness and decreased stress and worry.

Be happy!

Stringencies in religious observance are madness; therefore, no one should be too exacting with himself. Don’t worry about whether your performance of a mitzvah is perfect or not, just do what you can with innocence and with simplicity of thought and intent. Remember that the Torah wasn’t given to angels, but to human beings with human limitations.

Those who demand angelic deportment from themselves are therefore candidates for frustration, gloom, and disappointment that results from the arrogant feeling that they should be doing everything perfectly. A person connected to the truth is happy serving Hashem the best way he or she can, without going into hair-splitting stringencies.

Belief in our wise men

Rebbe Nachman of Breslev teaches (See Rebbe Nachman’s Discourses, 67) that, “Ignoring the wise can cause insanity. A person acts insane only because he ignores the advice of others. If he would take rational advice, he could act normal. His mental state might rationalize his need to do such things as tearing his clothing and rolling in the garbage. But a wiser man than he tells him not to do these things. If he would only subjugate his will to the wise, his actions would become completely rational. Insane behavior therefore results only from ignoring the wise. Understand this well.”

The above teaching obligates any rational personal to heed the words of the wise, especially of our renowned spiritual leaders. Belief in their words together with emuna in Hashem is the key to mental health. The Torah praises the children of Israel during their flight from bondage in Egypt when it says (Exodus 14:31), “And they believed in Hashem and in His servant Moses.”

Torah study

Rebbe Nachman of Breslev, probably the greatest doctor of the soul that ever lived, also teaches (see Abridged Likutei Moharan, I:1) that “by learning Torah, one is saved from madness.”

The Yetzer Hara, the evil inclination, wants to drive a person crazy. Our sages teach us that a person doesn’t sin unless the spirit of insanity enters his brain. As the evil inclination (EI) wants a person to sin, he injects that person with a dose of insanity. The EI has all kinds of ploys to trap a person, and uses a number of different temptations and confusions to twist one’s better judgment. The only way to guard against these pitfalls is by strengthening Torah learning and strengthening emuna.

Thoughts

“Evil thoughts and contemplations of lust make people crazy” (Likutei Moharan I:60). There is a very strong correlation between personal holiness and mental health. The opposite is also sad and true, that the more a person succumbs to lust and lewd thoughts, the less sane he becomes. People notoriously do insane things to fulfill their lusts, whether it be squandering hard-earned money, risking the wrath of the irate husband of the woman they covet, or breaking up their own home and ruining their own lives as well as the lives of their wife and children. Pornography adds to this insanity.

Therefore, guarding one’s eyes and mind from lewd and forbidden input is just as important as guarding one’s mouth from swallowing poison. In fact, it’s easier to poison the mind that it is to poison the body.

Torah learning, learning about emuna, sincere teshuva in the area of personal holiness, extensive personal prayer, and guarding one’s eyes especially from impure books, movies, magazines, and websites are conducive to escaping the pitfalls of the type of evil thoughts and contemplations of last that make a normal person insane.

A person should pray for happiness. Happiness and good mental health go hand in hand. True happiness comes from enhanced emuna.