Sponsored by the Friends of Israel Educational Foundation (FIEF)
and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and supported by the EU COST
action Zinc-Net (COST TD1304), a three-day collaborative UK-Israel
workshop was organized by Drs Assaf Rudich, Imre Lengyel and Arie
Moran. Participants from the UK and Israel met at the Desert Iris Hotel,
Yeruham, Israel between the 28-30th of November 2016 for in-depth
discussions, rather than a lecture series, to set the stage for future
collaborative grants and projects on diabetes and zinc. Two days of
formal scientific sessions with dynamic and wide-ranging discussions
was followed by a day of touring and informal networking in the Negev
area. This format was previously recognized by our sponsors as both
effective and enjoyable and all participants agreed at the end of the
meeting that the 3-days provided an excellent basis for future scientific
collaboration. The discussions were centered on diabetes and obesity,
already at pandemic levels, and zinc homeostasis which is related to the
clinical issues and themes of the meeting. The free-flowing discussions
were based on short presentations setting the scene for the six main
topics:‘Diabetes and zinc transporters’,‘Nutrition related factors’, ‘Biomarkers’, ‘Clinical epidemiology’, ‘the Microbiome and diabetes’,
and ‘Related diseases’. The abstract style summary of the sessions is
followed by the major discussion points raised by the Authors and other
participants (UK: Patrik Rorsman, Oxford University; Alan Stewart,
University of St Andrews and Israel: Assaf Rudich, Idit Liberty, Rahel
Gol, Guy Las and Amos Katz, Ben-Gurion University; Sarah Zangen,
Haddassa University). We hope that readers will find this discourse
stimulating and some of the ideas might make their way into their re-
search efforts.