Professor Aaron Ciechanover, Special Envoy of the Technion President to Guangdong Technion – Israel Institute of Technology (GTIIT) and 2004 Nobel Laureate, received the Sydney Brenner Memorial Award at the 2021 Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star) Scientific Conference.

The Award is in memory of a late biologist, Dr. Sydney Brenner, who was a pioneer in the field of molecular biology, focusing on the genetic code and the creation of protein molecules. Prof. Ciechanover, the second scientist to receive the Award, built on Dr. Brenner’s work in the sphere and delved into protein degradation.

Prof. Ciechanover pointed out that the process they discovered has changed the clinical landscape of treating blood cancers such as multiple myeloma, which forms in a type of white blood cell. This disease was deadly, which killed people within a year or two. Some patients were cured completely adopting the medicine that was developed based on the discovery.

He said, "Over the next few years, the market will see more drugs based on the ubiquitin system coming into beneficial use for patients with different diseases. This all came from curiosity-driven, basic research that started in the late 70s.”

Prof. Aaron Ciechanover was born in Haifa, Israel in 1947. He is a distinguished research professor at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa. During his postgraduate study, he, alongside his professor and a colleague in the United States, discovered that the covalent attachment of ubiquitin to a target protein signals it for degradation. After deciphering the mechanism of conjugation, they described the general proteolytic functions of the system and proposed a model according to which this modification serves as a recognition signal for a specific downstream protease. He continued his studies on the ubiquitin system and made additional important discoveries as a post-doctoral fellow. Along the years it has become clear that ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis plays major roles 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.

Text: The StraitsTimes, GTIIT News & Public Affairs

Photos: The StraitsTimes