Aaron Ciechanover, M.D., D.Sc., visiting professor of pediatrics and the Research Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, was selected Oct. 6 to receive the 2004 Nobel Prize in chemistry.
Ciechanover has been a visiting professor at the University since 1987, spending a portion of each year in the Department of Pediatrics.
He is the 22nd Nobel laureate associated with the University.
Ciechanover shared the award with Avram Hershko, M.D., Ph.D., also from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, and Irwin Rose, M.D., from the University of California, Irvine.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences honored the three scientists for their groundbreaking discovery of a process that cells use to eliminate unwanted proteins.
In the late 1980s, the three scientists conducted studies that described a cellular pathway by which proteins are marked for destruction. The proteins are labeled with a small molecule called ubiquitin and then rapidly broken down in cellular waste disposers called proteasomes.
The system rigorously maintains the quality of proteins in cells by eliminating faulty and unneeded proteins.
Discovery of the ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation pathway has led to the understanding of how the cell controls the cell cycle, DNA repair, gene transcription and some immune defense functions. Defects in the pathway may lead to cancer and are linked to many inherited diseases.
Ciechanover’s association with the University began with a two-year sabbatical during which he worked with Alan Schwartz, Ph.D., M.D., the Harriet B. Spoehrer Professor and head of the Department of Pediatrics.
“My association with Washington University, which I consider to be my second home, has contributed greatly to my research,” Ciechanover said. “My association with the faculty there has been very fruitful, and I look forward to working with them in the coming years as well.”
Ciechanover and Schwartz have focused their studies on the cellular biology of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation.
“Aaron Ciechanover is a passionate scientist who exemplifies scholarly inquiry,” Schwartz said. “His discovery of the ubiquitin protein degradation system with Hershko in the late 1970s was based on a series of very elegant, yet methodologically simple, experiments. The implications for human health and disease are tremendously broad and only beginning to be fully appreciated.
“We are thrilled that he has been a member of the University community for the past 18 years and will continue to be in the future.”
Ciechanover earned a medical degree from Hadassah Medical School in Israel and was a graduate student in biochemistry with Hershko in Haifa.
These studies, many of which were in collaboration with Rose, elucidated the protein degradation system.
Following four years at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ciechanover returned to Haifa as a senior professor.
In 2000, Ciechanover and Hershko received the Lasker Prize for their work on the ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation system.