Battlefield advances yield freeze-dried blood, oxygen packets

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New research in medicine in Israel has brought potential breakthroughs in patient care for battlefield and civilian use.

That’s what the audience at the Young Israel of Lawrence-Cedarhurst heard from Dr. Yossi Mandel last Monday evening in a briefing billed as an opportunity to “learn about new medical research and its application to the civilian sector from the former head of research and foreign affairs directorate for the Israel Defense Forces and Israel Ministry of Defense.”

Dr. Michael Frogel, Vice President of APF, recounted some of the advances in a talk jointly sponsored by the UJA-Federation of New York, and American Physicians and Friends for Medicine in Israel.

Freeze-dried blood, still under development, can be used on soldiers or civilians, and can be kept in ambulances, said Frogel. “It needs no refrigeration and can stay on the shelf for years and years.” Another advance is the use of functional MRIs to diagnose post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) by seeing changes in the brain. Small packages of 100% oxygen are also under research. And the development of an artificial retina has already been demonstrated in rats, explained Frogel. It has potential for treatment of macular degeneration and retinal damage.

AFP gives scholarships to Israeli physicians to study abroad in the U.S. and Canada and return to Israel as experts, explained Frogel. The organization has Birthright for medical students and emergency and preparedness courses in Israel for doctors in the U.S. and Canada. These doctors will return as medical volunteers to Israel should a state of emergency be declared due to a natural disaster or war.

Dr. Yossi Mandel is a practicing surgeon and ophthalmologist, and has extensive experience in the IDF in health, safety, epidemiology and military and battlefield medicine. He has taught in the Hebrew University and the Edith Wolfson Medical Center and has written for many journals. He is currently a post-doctoral fellow at

Stanford University.