One way to strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship is by developing new approaches—learning with and from each other—to solving some of the world’s toughest health challenges. San Francisco Bay Area universities are drawing on their traditions of distinguished scholarship to forge the cutting edge of data science and analysis. Israeli scientists have relatively quickly garnered international attention for the value of their innovations, both academically and entrepreneurially. Additionally, Israeli medical centers and universities have the real-life experience of confronting trauma and mass casualty events, plus the asset of a public health system that captures and maintains large datasets about the population. Through scholarly exchanges, in-person symposia, and grants, researchers and other experts at these institutions can advance ideas leading to more personalized medicine, promoting integrative healthcare, and encouraging innovative drug development for diseases that have yet to see medical breakthroughs.

Although the pandemic put in-person exchanges and academic gatherings on hold, technology not only enabled these collaborations to move forward, but also sparked new ways of sharing data and developing future-forward approaches. Most timely, the expertise of these institutions also contributed to the way trauma centers managed through the COVID-19 pandemic surge in the fall/winter of 2020.

These medical research partnerships are both diverse and multidisciplinary. On the individual level, the disease origins and vulnerabilities they examine will advance global progress toward an era of truly personalized medicine. On the broadest societal level, improving and formalizing emergency response and treatment—whether to a wildfire or earthquake, gun violence or a pandemic—is an essential aspect of modern public health infrastructure. We are all in this together.