Israel’s key scientific lab has been destroyed in Tel Aviv. What does it mean for life and agri sciences

News Agencies

This is a development which has been least reported. In the early hours of Sunday, Iranian missiles hit into the heart of Israel’s scientific pride.

The Weizmann Institute of Science, a globally renowned research hub with decades of work in life sciences, physics and chemistry, including agricultural  sciences, was heavily damaged in a direct strike that Israeli officials and scientists are calling both a tactical and symbolic blow.

“They managed to harm the crown jewel of science in Israel,” said Professor Oren Schuldiner, standing near the rubble that once housed his lab of 16 years.

Two buildings were directly hit — one home to life sciences labs, the other still under construction.

At least a dozen others were damaged, shattering windows, twisting steel, and reducing sophisticated research environments into burnt-out shells.

“This was the life’s work of many people,” said Professor Sarel Fleishman.

“Some labs were literally decimated. Really, nothing was left.”

The Weizmann Institute, founded in 1934 and named after Israel’s first president, is often ranked among the world’s top research centres, which includes cutting edge research on agricultural sciences.

Scientists maintain while much of the knowledge and information resources of the lab related to agricultural resources must be preserved in digital form, there is a possibility that an unknown number of precious physical samples must have perished during the strike on the lab.

It has built Israel’s first computer as well.

“The institute symbolises Israeli scientific progress,” he said.