Unique Neuroscience Tools

April 2, 2014

Yakobchuk Vasyl/Shutterstock.com Alpha Omega isn’t just another Israeli high-tech company. In addition to successfully cornering the market on products for neurosurgery and neuroscience research, Alpha Omega is also a success story involving its Arab-Israeli co-owners, Imad and Reem Younis. In 1993, they decided to take the bold move of going back to their mutual hometown of Nazareth, a largely Christian Arab city, to launch a business making neurological recording and stimulation tools. 

The company’s products have been well received by brain surgeons and researchers needing great accuracy and stability. “Alpha Omega’s know-how is about ‘driving’ safely inside the brain with an electrode, recording neural activity, stimulating neural tissue, processing and analyzing the data,” explains Reem Younis. “In simple terms, you can look at it as a GPS inside the brain that guides the neurosurgeon to the required location, where a permanent electrode is implanted. This treatment is supposed to eliminate disease symptoms, and the patient can go back to his or her normal life.”

Brain researchers use Alpha Omega tools in lab experiments and to analyze results, while neurosurgeons use them to treat patients with conditions such as Parkinson’s disease and dystonia, a nervous system disorder that causes involuntary muscle contractions and spasms. “In Europe, this method is also used to treat depression,” says Younis. The products are all approved by the US Food and Drug Administration and also have the European CE Mark. 

The 35 staff members in Alpha Omega’s Nazareth headquarters are graduates of the Technion or Tel Aviv University, and belong to all denominations: Christian, Muslim and Jewish.

Source: Excerpts of an article by Avigayil Kadesh, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs