Ramot, Bracha
RAMOT, BRACHA
RAMOT, BRACHA (1927–2006), physician and medical researcher. Ramot was born in Raseinei, Lithuania. In 1941, after the occupation of Lithuania by the Soviets, she was transferred to Komi in North Russia, where she studied to become a practical nurse (felsher) and substituted for a family physician. Simultaneously, she also graduated from an evening high school. She arrived in Israel illegally via Poland and Cyprus in 1947, to be joined by her family 27 years later. During the Israel War of Independence she served in the *Palmaḥas a nurse. She then studied at the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, from which she graduated in 1952. She did her internship and residency in medicine at the Tel Hashomer (now Sheba) Hospital.
In 1954–56 Ramot trained with Karl Singer in hematology at the Michael Reese Hospital, Chicago, and in 1956–57 at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine with Irving London. Upon her return to Israel, she established the Institute of Hematology at Tel Hashomer Hospital and took an active part in the founding of the Sackler Faculty of Medicine of Tel Aviv University. From 1971 until her retirement in 1994 she was professor and head of the Hematology Section at the Postgraduate School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University. In 1975–79 she was head of the Blood Service of *Magen David Adom and in 1991–96 she was medical director of the Maccabi Health Services. She educated an entire generation of hematologists who became leaders in the field in Israel. In 2001 she was awarded the Israel Prize in medical sciences.
Ramot was involved in a number of fields of basic and clinical research. They included red cell enzymes and cell aging, circadian rhythms of enzymes, variants of glucose-6-phospahate dehydrogenase (g6pd), genetic variants of serum proteins in Jewish ethnic groups and Arabs, and effects of genetic and environmental factors on the hematologic malignancies. She described the clinical and pathologic entity of small intestinal lymphoma with malabsorption in Arab and non-Ashkenazi Jewish young adults.
[Bracha Rager (2nd ed.)]