Striving towards Excellence

-Karthik Gurumurthy

There are actually three Nobel Laureates in Chemistry for this year: Aaron Ciechanover, Avram Hershko, and Irwin Rose. They were jointly awarded the prize for their discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation, a fundamental process in cells that helps regulate many important functions.

Aaron Ciechanover was born in Haifa, Israel, in 1949. He earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in 1974. After completing his postdoctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he returned to the Technion as a faculty member, where he remains today.

Avram Hershko was born in Karcag, Hungary, in 1937. He emigrated to Israel with his family in 1950 and earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1965. After postdoctoral research at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, he joined the Technion faculty in 1969.

Irwin Rose was born in New York City, USA, in 1926. He earned his Ph.D. in biology from the University of Chicago in 1952. After postdoctoral research at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, he joined the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1963. He retired from Fox Chase in 2002 but continues to do research as a professor emeritus at the University of California, Irvine.

Ciechanover, Hershko, and Rose made their seminal discovery in the early 1980s. They found that cells use a small protein called ubiquitin to tag proteins for degradation. This process is essential for many cellular functions, including cell cycle control, DNA repair, and immunity.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Ciechanover, Hershko, and Rose will be awarded today. Their work has had a profound impact on our understanding of cell biology and has led to the development of new drugs for cancer and other diseases.