Israel and Germany agree to expand joint cancer research

Germany and Israel signed an agreement Tuesday to expand scientific cooperation between the two countries in cancer research and to expand joint water purification projects. [Wikimedia Commons photo]

Germany and Israel signed an agreement Tuesday to expand scientific cooperation between the two countries in cancer research and to expand joint water purification projects.

Science and technology ministers for the two nations, Johanna Wanka (Germany) and Yaakov Peri (Israel), signed the agreement in Jerusalem. A 16-member delegation of ministers from Germany, as well as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, arrived in Israel Monday.

The two ministers expressed their desire to raise the joint cancer research program's budget from its current level of NIS 2 million ($568,000) per year.

“We have come here with almost the whole of our new government and we wanted to show you (Israel) in this way that this is indeed a very strong friendship,” Merkel said.