- 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Intro
Israeli biochemist who shared the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Avram Hershko and Irwin Rose for their joint discovery of the mechanism by which the cells of most living organisms cull unwanted proteins.
Education and Work Experience
1974, M.D., “Hadassah” and the Hebrew University School of Medicine
1992-Present, Professor of Department of Biochemistry, Technion
1993-2000, Director of Rappaport Family Institute for Research in the Medical Sciences, Technion
2002-Present, Distinguished Research Professor, Technion
Honors and Awards
2000, Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award
2004, Nobel Prize in Chemistry
2007, Foreign Associate of the United States National Academy of Sciences
2008, Fellow (Honorary; Foreign) American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Major Academic Achievements
Professor Chehanovo's main academic contribution is the discovery of the ubiquitin- mediated protein degradation system. In the late 1970s and early ’80s, Ciechanover, Hershko, and Rose worked together at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, where much of their prizewinning research was done. The process that they discovered involves a series of carefully orchestrated steps by which cells degrade, or destroy, the proteins that no longer serve any useful purpose. They also demonstrated that ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation helps control a number of other critical biochemical processes, including cell division, the repair of defects in DNA, and gene transcription, the process in which genes use their coded instructions to manufacture a protein. Diseases such as cystic fibrosis result when the protein-degradation system does not work normally, and researchers hoped to use the findings to develop drugs against such illnesses.