The vision behind the foundation of the Felsenstein Medical Research Center (FMRC) in the early 1990s was to make basic and clinical medical research accessible to the medical community at the Rabin Medical Center, which includes the Beilinson Hospital, the Schneider Center for Pediatrics and the Geha Mental Health Hospital.
The center is an outcome of a close collaboration between the Faculty of Medicine at the Tel Aviv University and the Rabin Medical Center, and includes researchers from the university alongside physicians from the medical center. FMRC hosts about thirty research laboratories in various fields.
FMRC provides its researchers with a supportive research environment that includes responding to the researcher's changing needs in terms of laboratory areas and advanced equipment available to him within the Interdepartmental Equipment Unit (IEU). The management, in collaboration with the FMRC equipment committee comprised of researchers from the center, examines continuously the inventory in the IEU and takes care of renewing it and enriching it with the up to date and most advanced equipment.
Only recently have valuable instruments such as a Confocal Microscope, Cell Sorter, Nanosight and Exoid been added to the existing equipment in the IEU. In addition to purchasing, assimilating and maintaining interdepartmental equipment, the IEU unit supports and provides guidance to researchers, and graduate students, who gain experience working with advanced equipment.
The center management encourages collaborations and mutual help between researchers and initiates monthly meetings of research group leaders to present their work.
In addition, bi-weekly seminars are held in the center, in which researchers from Israel and abroad are invited to give lectures on their work. The management supports instilling a positive atmosphere and a unique spirit at the center and fosters interpersonal communication between researchers.
The center is home to many MSc and PhD students as well as medical students and interns performing their dissertations and basic sciences. The center management encourages the absorption of students in the research laboratories and assists them administratively.
To this end, a new project "The Student at the Center" was launched, which aims to accompany the students at the center throughout their study period and help them with whatever they ask for.