STOCKHOLM, Sweden – Two Israelis and an American won the Nobel Prize in chemistry Wednesday for showing how cells can give a “kiss of death” to destroy unwanted proteins, a finding that could help scientists find new medicines for cancer and other diseases. The award marks the first time an Israeli has won a Nobel science prize.
Israelis Aaron Ciechanover and Avram Hershko, and American Irwin Rose were cited for revealing a process that gives doomed proteins a chemical label and then chops them up.
That process in turn governs such key tasks as cell division, DNA repair and quality control of newly produced proteins, the Royal Swedish Academy of Science said in awarding the prize. If it goes wrong, diseases such as cervical cancer may result, the academy said.
Ciechanover, 56, is director of the Rappaport Family Institute for Research in Medical Sciences at the Technion, in Haifa, Israel. Hershko, 70, originally from Hungary, is a professor there. The 78-year-old Rose is a professor emeritus at the University of California-Irvine.
All three will share the $1.3 million cash prize for their work, done in the 1980s.
At a news conference in Hershko’s apartment in Haifa, the two Israelis said they hope their work will lead to advances in the treatment of cancer.
One drug, Velcade, is already on the U.S. market, Ciechanover noted, and “there are many more in the pipeline.”
Added Hershko: “It does not mean that a miracle drug to beat cancer is on the way. But I do believe there will be advances in the treatment of cancer based on our work. This I truly believe in.”
The prizes, www.nobelprize.org, which include a $1.3 million check, a gold medal and a diploma, are presented on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death in 1896.
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