ALYN Hospital, Israel’s first and only pediatric and adolescent rehabilitation facility, has been awarded a donation of $2.189 million from The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, to establish the first center in Israel dedicated to groundbreaking research that will position Israel as a global leader in pediatric and adolescent rehabilitation development.

The Helmsley Charitable Trust is a global philanthropy committed to helping people live better lives today and creating stronger, healthier futures for individuals and communities. Since 2010, Helmsley has contributed over $434 million to Israel, including a donation of $12.5M last year to help fight the coronavirus pandemic.

ALYN Hospital’s new research center will focus on several relevant fields, including  cognitive, orthopedic and neurological rehabilitation, remote rehabilitation, mobility, and more. These are crucial areas to help ALYN’s young patients perform their daily activities and promote their integration into their communities. These patients are in need of rehabilitation due to various circumstances, such as accidents, diseases, birth defects, and developmental issues (such as cerebral palsy).  With the new research center, ALYN Hospital will be able to advance its treatment methods and approach. The research will be conducted in collaboration with other hospitals and organizations in Israel and around the world.

Arie Melamed, General Manager of ALYNnovation, the hospital’s innovation center, has been appointed as the Director of the Research Center, while Prof. Patrice L. (Tamar) Weiss, a world-renowned expert in the field of rehabilitation, will oversee the center’s scientific activities.

Sandor Frankel, a Helmsley Trustee, stated: “Helmsley is pleased to support ALYN Hospital, a distinguished institution qualified to lead the necessary research activities in the field of pediatric and adolescent rehabilitation in Israel, helping millions of young patients in the country and around the world who need innovative and groundbreaking treatments.”

“The new research center will allow us to expand our research and clinical trials, recruit additional professionals in the field, and continue to advance pediatric and adolescent rehabilitation in Israel and around the world,” says ALYN Hospital’s Director General Dr. Maurit Beeri. “The field of child rehabilitation has not received enough attention due to it being relatively limited,” explains Dr. Beeri. “By establishing this research center at the ALYN Hospital, in collaboration with our best researchers, doctors and senior therapists from various health fields, we will take a major step forward in the fields of research and development of technologies for the rehabilitation of children and adolescents.”