Professors Avram Hershko and Aaron Ciechanover from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa are the winners of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2004. They won the prestigious prize together with Professor Irwin Rose from the University of California-Irvine.
Professors Hershko and Ciechanover, from the Technion's Bruce and Ruth Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, are the first researchers to identify the Ubiquitin system, responsible for the dissolution of proteins within the cell, thereby producing a breakthrough in research in cancer, degenerative brain diseases and many other diseases. The three scientists uncovered a process that governs such key processes as cell division, DNA repair, maintaining quality control of newly produced proteins and functioning of the body's immune defenses. Their discovery caused a profound change in scientific grasp of processes within cells.
Prof. Aaron Ciechanover was Prof. Hershko's student and together they succeeded in achieving this breakthrough which won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Both are past winners of the Israel Prize. The two scientists expressed their pride in being the first two Israelis to win Nobel prizes for science, and their satisfaction that their colleague at UC Irvine was also honored.
The President of the Technion, Prof. Yitzhak Apeloig, expressed his great delight and satisfaction, in the name of all the members of the Technion family, on the historic achievement of these Technion researchers. "This is a mark of distinction for Israeli science generally and for the Technion in particular," he said.
The President of Israel, Mr. Moshe Katsav, expressed, on behalf of the citizens of Israel, his sincere esteem of the scientific achievements of Professor Avram Hershko and Professor Aaron Ciechanover of the Technion which had earned them the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the year 2004.
The President noted that Prof. Hershko and Prof. Ciechanover deserved honor and respect for their unique contribution to science which has already helped save and lengthen human lives. The President thanked the Israeli Nobel prizewinners for contributing, together with other Israeli scientists, to Israel's image of an enlightened country on the forefront of humanity's progress.