Aaron Ciechanover

Aaron Ciechanover is a Distinguished Research Professor in the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology. His years of research, including those as a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were critical to the elucidation of the major roles of ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis in numerous cellular processes, and aberrations in the system underlie the pathogenetic mechanisms of many diseases, among them certain malignancies and neurodegenerative disorders. Consequently, the system has become an important platform for drug development. Among the numerous prizes Aaron received are the 2000 Albert Lasker Award, the 2003 Israel Prize, and the 2004 Nobel Prize (Chemistry; shared with Drs. Hershko and Rose). He is member of many academies including the Israeli National Academy of Sciences and Humanities, The European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Foreign Fellow), the American Philosophical Society, the National Academies of Sciences (NAS) and Medicine (NAM) of the USA (Foreign Associate), the Pontifical Academy of Sciences at the Vatican, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS; Foreign Member), and the Russian Academy of Sciences (Foreign Member). Aaron received his M.Sc. and M.D. from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He then completed his national service as military physician, and continued his studies to earn a D.Sc. in biological sciences in the Faculty of Medicine in the Technion.