'Hope is the research,' says Hebrew U professor who studies autism, Alzheimer's

(JNS) - Haitham Amal wasn't always propelled toward science. He wanted to study international relations; he said he liked the networking and learning about new cultures.

Then he took physics and chemistry in high school, and "fell in love with science," he told JNS. More specifically, he wanted to understand the pharmacological aspects of it - how drugs worked to help people.

The trajectory seemed natural. Amal, 39, a Christian Israeli, grew up in Haifa with three siblings in an educated family, he said, with one uncle a doctor and his sister a pharmacist.

He studied at Hebrew University of Je...