(Writen on 10.12.2014)
Ten years ago, on December 10th, 2004, Technion became home to Israel’s 1st Nobel Prizes in the natural sciences. Since then the Technion Nobel legacy has continued, with the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to Distinguished Prof. Dan Shechtman, and the 2013 Prize in Chemistry awarded to Technion graduate Prof. Arieh Warshel.
Ubiquitin: so called, because it is a protein present in all living cells. No-one knew why it was there, and no-one dared to wonder: it was just boring – “ubiquitous”.
But no living secrets are untouched by Technion scientists.
Throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s, Distinguished Professors Avram Hershko and Aaron Ciechanover unveiled the mysteries of the ubiquitin system, revealing some masterkeys of human health. The ubiquitous protein ubiquitin, they showed, is the key factor in deciding when and how a cell should regenerate. Imbalance in ubiquitin reveals itself in some of the world’s most incurable afflictions – such as cancer and neuro-degenerative disorders.
By 2004, the Technion research was already revolutionizing medical understanding and opening the way to innovative cures and treatments. No wonder that, in that year, the two Technion Professors became Israel’s first Nobel Laureates in science.