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"No idea we were even in the race"
Israeli scientist Avram Hershko was at a public pool with his four granddaughters on Wednesday when he learned he had won the Nobel prize for chemistry.
Israeli scientist Avram Hershko was at a public pool with his four granddaughters on Wednesday when he learned he had won the Nobel prize for chemistry. A relative phoned him with the news, relaying what he had just heard on Israel Radio. Hershko, 66, his Israeli research partner, Aaron Ciechanover, 56, and an American associate, Irwin Rose, 78, won for discovering a key way cells destroy unwanted proteins.
At a news conference in Hershko's modest apartment in the Israeli port city of Haifa, the two Israelis said they hope their work will lead to new advances in the treatment of cancer. One drug based on their research that has already gone to market is just the beginning, they said.
The three scientists uncovered a process that starts when a doomed protein is grabbed by a particular molecule, marking it for destruction. Such marked proteins are then chopped to pieces. The process governs such key processes as cell division, DNA repair and quality control of newly produced proteins, as well as important parts of the body's immune defenses against disease, the academy said in its citation.
One drug based on their work, Velcade, marketed by U.S. company Millennium Pharmaceuticals, is already on the market, Ciechanover said.
Many other drugs that harness the protein-destroying process are in development, said Ciechanover, who is director of the Rappaport Family Institute for Research in Medical Sciences at the Technion in Haifa. Hershko, a Holocaust survivor originally from Hungary, is a professor there.
"Drug companies jumped on the idea. It's the tip of the iceberg in terms of pharmaceuticals," said Ciechanover.
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." Ciechanover, born in Haifa, studied medicine in Jerusalem, dropped out, then completed his studies and served as a doctor in the Israeli military. In 1969, he met Hershko, who was his professor. At the time, they first became interested in how proteins break down in a cell.
Hershko immigrated to Israel in 1950 and became a doctor, but always concentrated on research. The Hungarian prime minister called to congratulate Hershko, though Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had not been in touch by the time of the news conference. Hershko and Ciechanover said they were very proud to be the first two Israelis to win Nobel prizes for science.
"We're a small country ... so we don't have all the infrastructure that big laboratories have in the U.S. or in other places," said Hershko.
The prize is "identified 100 percent with Israeli scientists that ... have worked and lived in the country and will continue to live and to work in this country," added Ciechanover. Former prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres were honored in 1994, along with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, with a Nobel Peace Prize for their interim peace accords. Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat won in 1978 for the Camp David peace agreement between their nations. Israeli novelist Shai Agnon won in 1966 for literature.
Hershko and Ciechanover have been honored for their work in Israel, including with the prestigious Wolf Prize and the Israel Prize for science. They said they enjoyed the Nobel prize a lot more, because it honored their American collaborator, who wasn't recognized in the earlier prizes, even though he did just as much work.
Hershko was flanked by his six grandchildren, and two bouquets of flowers arrived.
Both man used the occasion to complain about what they said was chronic underfunding of higher education in Israel. "The state of Israel is committing a kind of suicide by neglecting higher education," said Ciechanover. "Brain power is our best natural resource and best hope for exports."
