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A Scientific and Technological Powerhouse

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Q & A with Israel Minister of Science and Technology Professor Daniel Hershkowitz

December 9, 2011 by The American Technion Society

Israel is a Universal Scientific and Technological Powerhouse

Professor Daniel Hershkowitz, formerly of the Technion Faculty of Mathematics, is in Stockholm this week together with his wife Shimona, for the Nobel Prize Festivities. This is the first time that a governmental official has been invited to join in the Nobel ceremony. The following interview reflects his thoughts about the Nobel Prize and science and technology in Israel.
Q. What does the Nobel Prize mean to Israel?
A. This is another acknowledgement of the very special status of Israel as a universal scientific and technological powerhouse. It’s also an indication of the special status of the Technion. How many universities have three Nobel Laureates in seven years, and all of them grew up in the Technion, studied there and continued to conduct research and teach there. That is remarkable.
Q. What is the impact on the worldwide Jewish Community?
A. Most Jews around the world feel that the State of Israel is their homeland. The Nobel provides them with a great sense of pride. There is naturally excitement throughout the community as this is a great honor for Eretz Yisrael and the entire Jewish world.  I feel that when I represent the State of Israel at the Nobel ceremony, I will be representing Jews around the world as well.
Q. Before becoming a Minister, you were a Professor at the Technion. How important has the Technion been for the State of Israel?
A. In the high-tech sector, some 70% of the managers and founders of companies are Technion graduates. This is dramatic.  Israel is a very young country — only 63 years old — and is an economic miracle. The Technion played a big role in this. Not only in building buildings but in establishing the whole area of technology and also in the defense of our country. Technion graduates develop the cutting-edge technologies at the Israel Aircraft Industries and Rafael, Israel’s Armament Authority.
In addition the Technion has undertaken a new program to educate the ultraorthodox community. This is a great way to integrate this segment of the population so that they may contribute to the economy in a meaningful way.
Q. How can people become part of Israel’s great success in high-technology?
A. They should come to Israel, be involved, be part of what is happening or support it. Organizations that assist Israeli institutions help maintain its status. We need the brightest scientists and innovators but we also need to find a way to fund them. Those who contribute to these efforts are true partners. They should not view their support as a “donation” but rather as a way to express their deep understanding of what is important for our country, and where it needs investment. The people who help the Technion are in effect policy makers in science and technology — and that is the future.

A Scientific and Technological Powerhouse

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Q & A with Israel Minister of Science and Technology Professor Daniel Hershkowitz

December 9, 2011 by The American Technion Society

Israel is a Universal Scientific and Technological Powerhouse

Professor Daniel Hershkowitz, formerly of the Technion Faculty of Mathematics, is in Stockholm this week together with his wife Shimona, for the Nobel Prize Festivities. This is the first time that a governmental official has been invited to join in the Nobel ceremony. The following interview reflects his thoughts about the Nobel Prize and science and technology in Israel.
Q. What does the Nobel Prize mean to Israel?
A. This is another acknowledgement of the very special status of Israel as a universal scientific and technological powerhouse. It’s also an indication of the special status of the Technion. How many universities have three Nobel Laureates in seven years, and all of them grew up in the Technion, studied there and continued to conduct research and teach there. That is remarkable.
Q. What is the impact on the worldwide Jewish Community?
A. Most Jews around the world feel that the State of Israel is their homeland. The Nobel provides them with a great sense of pride. There is naturally excitement throughout the community as this is a great honor for Eretz Yisrael and the entire Jewish world.  I feel that when I represent the State of Israel at the Nobel ceremony, I will be representing Jews around the world as well.
Q. Before becoming a Minister, you were a Professor at the Technion. How important has the Technion been for the State of Israel?
A. In the high-tech sector, some 70% of the managers and founders of companies are Technion graduates. This is dramatic.  Israel is a very young country — only 63 years old — and is an economic miracle. The Technion played a big role in this. Not only in building buildings but in establishing the whole area of technology and also in the defense of our country. Technion graduates develop the cutting-edge technologies at the Israel Aircraft Industries and Rafael, Israel’s Armament Authority.
In addition the Technion has undertaken a new program to educate the ultraorthodox community. This is a great way to integrate this segment of the population so that they may contribute to the economy in a meaningful way.
Q. How can people become part of Israel’s great success in high-technology?
A. They should come to Israel, be involved, be part of what is happening or support it. Organizations that assist Israeli institutions help maintain its status. We need the brightest scientists and innovators but we also need to find a way to fund them. Those who contribute to these efforts are true partners. They should not view their support as a “donation” but rather as a way to express their deep understanding of what is important for our country, and where it needs investment. The people who help the Technion are in effect policy makers in science and technology — and that is the future.

Nobel Prize lecture in Chemistry, Stockholm.

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The Nobel Lecture in Chemistry, Stockholm University, December 8, 2011
Courtesy of the American Technion Society

At the official Nobel lecture, Professor Dan Shechtman spoke about his groundbreaking discovery of quasicrystals in 1982.  He first explained periodicity and four-fold symmetry and that it looks the same, even if it is rotated. From 1912-1982 all crystals were considered to be ordered and periodic. No one expected something new to be discovered.

Using electron diffraction patterns, Prof. Shechtman was able to observe five-fold symmetry.  On the screen he shared a page from his original laboratory log book dated April 8, 1982 that listed the experiments that he performed and his observations on that day. Several years later he was joined by Ilan Blech and other scientists and together their work, initially rejected, was published and finally accepted in the scientific community.

Professor Shechtman asked why this discovery did not happen before 1982 as some 100,000 crystals were studied for a period of 70 years.  He said that quasicrystals are abundant, not rare. Aluminum alone has hundreds. They are stable and very easy and inexpensive to make.

He shared the five factors that helped lead to the discovery and acceptance:

1. TEM – Transition Electron Microscope. The discovery could not be made with x-rays and required this powerful tool that enabled scientists to see things at the atomic level.

2. Professionalism

3. Tenacity

4. Belief in self as a scientist

5.Courage

Nobel Prize lecture in Chemistry, Stockholm.

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The Nobel Lecture in Chemistry, Stockholm University, December 8, 2011
Courtesy of the American Technion Society

At the official Nobel lecture, Professor Dan Shechtman spoke about his groundbreaking discovery of quasicrystals in 1982.  He first explained periodicity and four-fold symmetry and that it looks the same, even if it is rotated. From 1912-1982 all crystals were considered to be ordered and periodic. No one expected something new to be discovered.

Using electron diffraction patterns, Prof. Shechtman was able to observe five-fold symmetry.  On the screen he shared a page from his original laboratory log book dated April 8, 1982 that listed the experiments that he performed and his observations on that day. Several years later he was joined by Ilan Blech and other scientists and together their work, initially rejected, was published and finally accepted in the scientific community.

Professor Shechtman asked why this discovery did not happen before 1982 as some 100,000 crystals were studied for a period of 70 years.  He said that quasicrystals are abundant, not rare. Aluminum alone has hundreds. They are stable and very easy and inexpensive to make.

He shared the five factors that helped lead to the discovery and acceptance:

1. TEM – Transition Electron Microscope. The discovery could not be made with x-rays and required this powerful tool that enabled scientists to see things at the atomic level.

2. Professionalism

3. Tenacity

4. Belief in self as a scientist

5.Courage

Israel Science Reaches for the Sun

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GTEP ~ the Energy Core

Prof. Gideon Grader, director of the Grand Technion Energy Program (GTEP), was chosen to lead the Center of Excellence in Alternative Energies, as announced by the Council of Higher Education at the end of June 2011. This initiative, the fourth center to be named in the I-CORE (Israeli Centers of Research Excellence) framework, will incorporates 36 researchers at Technion, Weizmann Institute of Science, and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU).

GTEP together with Weizmann and BGU, combined efforts in a proposal for advanced research into solar fuels. This includes biomass generation; hydrogen production by water splitting; photo conversion of CO2 to CO; biomass conversion to ethanol and biodiesel; biomass gasification and catalytic fuel generation from H2, CO, CO2 and methanol.

The center, chosen by an international committee, is slated to enlist at least nine new researchers in the coming three years. Three new members, returning to Israel from Harvard and University of Michigan, will be recruited to Technion’s Faculty of Biology and Schulich Faculty of Chemistry this year.

Clean Hydogen Energy Solutions

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Stop Press! December 5th, 2011: Dr. Avner Rothschild, will lecture on: Metal-oxide photoelectrodes for solar-induced water splitting: turning rust to gold. This seminar is part of the Technion-Monash: Nanosceince tele-seminar series, which is a cooperation of the Technion and the University of Melbourne in Australia. The seminar will take place at the Cooper building (main building of Industrial Engineering, Technion City), room 112, at 8 a.m.

Energy Transformers
By Georgina Johnson

Dr Avner Rothschild is working on new, efficient ways of using sunlight to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen is a clean and potentially abundant alternative to fossil fuels. Its large-scale use could lead to the sustainable development, energy independence, and security of many nations.

One of many powerful scientists tackling basic and applied problems in energy science and technology, Dr Avner Rothschild, of the Grand Technion Energy Program (GTEP) and the Faculty of Materials Engineering, has a penchant for high targets. Not only has his life-time hobby been climbing impossible cliff-faces, he also has a powerful vocation to make solar-produced hydrogen a viable future energy alternative.

Rothschild’s group in Technion’s Electroceramics Materials and Devices Laboratory is part of a large European collaborative project looking to split water into hydrogen and oxygen using the energy of the sun – thus creating a 100 percent clean fuel. “We try to produce hydrogen and oxygen by splitting water. The process is possible – it works – but the problem is low efficiency.”

His team is developing nanostructured metal-oxides for applications in environmental and energy conversion technologies. The group has a strong expertise in investigating electronic and ionic defects in semiconducting and mixed ionic-electronic conducting oxides and their effect on transport properties and electrochemical processes.

The scientific barrier is efficiency, says Rothschild, who sees the promise in the development of new electroceramic materials. “We are engineering tandem cells – several different cells, each one with a different aspect of energy from the sun. We are aiming at 5,000 hours stable operation at 10 percent efficiency.”

“We started this project at 3 percent efficiency,” says Rothschild. “Now we are at 5 percent. Our goal is still more – 10 percent – but it is within reach.”


NanoPECs

NanoPEC (Nanostructured Photoelectrodes for Energy Conversion) is the European consortium at work with Dr Avner Rothschild to crack the codes of clean hydrogen production and complement Rothschild’s studies in new materials with research from basic science to integration of total systems. The consortium, including groups from Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, and Switzerland which meet four times a year, is under the scientific leadership of Prof. Michael Grätzel, director of the Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces (LPI) of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne. In 2007, Grätzel received Technion’s prestigious Harvey Prize in science and technology and recently, in June 2010, the Finnish Millennium Technology Prize – the largest technology prize in the world – for development of dye-sensitized solar cells.

Photoelectrochemical cells (PECs) can split water directly into H2 and O2 via photoelectrolysis, and in so doing provide a basis for a renewable, clean production of hydrogen from sunlight. They rely on a photoactive material – a semiconductor – capable of harvesting and converting solar energy into stored chemical fuel, namely, hydrogen. Very little hydrogen gas is present in Earth’s atmosphere, but hydrogen is locked up in enormous quantities in water, hydrocarbons (such as methane), and other organic matter. Efficiently producing hydrogen from these compounds is one of the challenges of using hydrogen as a fuel.

More on the multimedia Technion-Monash intiative.

Clean Hydogen Energy Solutions

Leave a comment
Stop Press! December 5th, 2011: Dr. Avner Rothschild, will lecture on: Metal-oxide photoelectrodes for solar-induced water splitting: turning rust to gold. This seminar is part of the Technion-Monash: Nanosceince tele-seminar series, which is a cooperation of the Technion and the University of Melbourne in Australia. The seminar will take place at the Cooper building (main building of Industrial Engineering, Technion City), room 112, at 8 a.m.

Energy Transformers
By Georgina Johnson

Dr Avner Rothschild is working on new, efficient ways of using sunlight to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen is a clean and potentially abundant alternative to fossil fuels. Its large-scale use could lead to the sustainable development, energy independence, and security of many nations.

One of many powerful scientists tackling basic and applied problems in energy science and technology, Dr Avner Rothschild, of the Grand Technion Energy Program (GTEP) and the Faculty of Materials Engineering, has a penchant for high targets. Not only has his life-time hobby been climbing impossible cliff-faces, he also has a powerful vocation to make solar-produced hydrogen a viable future energy alternative.

Rothschild’s group in Technion’s Electroceramics Materials and Devices Laboratory is part of a large European collaborative project looking to split water into hydrogen and oxygen using the energy of the sun – thus creating a 100 percent clean fuel. “We try to produce hydrogen and oxygen by splitting water. The process is possible – it works – but the problem is low efficiency.”

His team is developing nanostructured metal-oxides for applications in environmental and energy conversion technologies. The group has a strong expertise in investigating electronic and ionic defects in semiconducting and mixed ionic-electronic conducting oxides and their effect on transport properties and electrochemical processes.

The scientific barrier is efficiency, says Rothschild, who sees the promise in the development of new electroceramic materials. “We are engineering tandem cells – several different cells, each one with a different aspect of energy from the sun. We are aiming at 5,000 hours stable operation at 10 percent efficiency.”

“We started this project at 3 percent efficiency,” says Rothschild. “Now we are at 5 percent. Our goal is still more – 10 percent – but it is within reach.”


NanoPECs

NanoPEC (Nanostructured Photoelectrodes for Energy Conversion) is the European consortium at work with Dr Avner Rothschild to crack the codes of clean hydrogen production and complement Rothschild’s studies in new materials with research from basic science to integration of total systems. The consortium, including groups from Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, and Switzerland which meet four times a year, is under the scientific leadership of Prof. Michael Grätzel, director of the Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces (LPI) of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne. In 2007, Grätzel received Technion’s prestigious Harvey Prize in science and technology and recently, in June 2010, the Finnish Millennium Technology Prize – the largest technology prize in the world – for development of dye-sensitized solar cells.

Photoelectrochemical cells (PECs) can split water directly into H2 and O2 via photoelectrolysis, and in so doing provide a basis for a renewable, clean production of hydrogen from sunlight. They rely on a photoactive material – a semiconductor – capable of harvesting and converting solar energy into stored chemical fuel, namely, hydrogen. Very little hydrogen gas is present in Earth’s atmosphere, but hydrogen is locked up in enormous quantities in water, hydrocarbons (such as methane), and other organic matter. Efficiently producing hydrogen from these compounds is one of the challenges of using hydrogen as a fuel.

More on the multimedia Technion-Monash intiative.

The Technion Nobel Tradition

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The Technion Nobel Laureates

Nobel Laureate Albert Einstein used to play violin in a string quartet with historic Technion architect and faculty member Prof. Alexander Baerwald. In the recession after WW1, dreams of making the Technion a functioning reality were slim, and Einstein was invited to come visit the waiting buildings designed by his friend and to advise on the dream of opening a technical institute in Haifa. On that day, the Nobel Laureate and his wife planted two trees to mark the occasion. On his return to Berlin, Einstein would open and chair the world’s first Technion society – the initiation of an apparatus that would generate a century of progress, teaching and expansion as the decade by decade, the Technion could anticpate and meet the needs of a fledgling nation.
On the 100th anniversary of the Technion’s first cornerstone, Technion’s Prof. Dan Shechtman was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. He is today Technion’s third Nobel Laureate, joining Prof. Avraham Hershko and Aaron Ciechanover. All three of them follow the spirit of scientific integrity and excellence in pure research displayed by founding father Albert Einstein, to whom the Technion owes so much. Scroll down to absorb a little of the Technion’s Nobel legacy.


LOKEY PARK ~ TECHNION GARDEN OF NOBEL LAUREATES

 

 

Click here to ZOOM4
Lokey Park – a garden of trees planted by
global Nobel Laureates at Technion City.

Technion 2011 Nobel Laureate Danny Shectman will be joining a list of Nobel Laureates who planted trees to celebrate their visit to Technion. The tradition was begun by Prof. Albert Einstein – Chairman of the first Technion Society, who planted two palm trees in 1923 in front of the Technion’s majestic first building in Hadar, Haifa.
1921: Albert Einstein initiates the Technion Nobel tradition.

Nobel Laureate Trees planted at Lokey Park and on Technion soil.

  • Prof. Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, UK; Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, 2009
  • Professor Ada Yonath, Israel; Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, 2009
  • Professor Linda B. Buck, USA; Nobel Laureate in Physiology/Medicine 2004
  • Prof. Avram Hershko, Israel; Nobel Laureate in Chemistry 2004
  • Prof. Aaron Ciechanover, Israel; Nobel Laureate in Chemistry 2004
  • Prof. Tim Hunt. U.K; Nobel Laureate in Medicine, 2001
  • Prof. Kurt Wüthrich, Switzerland; Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, 2002
  • Prof. Günter Blobel, USA; Nobel Laureate in Medicine, 1999
  • Prof. Ferid Murad, USA; Nobel Laureate in Medicine, 1998
  • Prof. Jean-Marie Lehn, France; Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, 1987
  • Prof. David Gross, USA; Nobel Laureate in Physics, 2004
  • Prof. Elie Wiesel, USA; Nobel Laureate in Peace, 1986
  • Rita Levi-Montalcini, Italy; Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1986
  • Albert Einstein, Germany/USA at old site; Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923


Click here to ZOOM2Click here to ZOOM3Click here to ZOOM4Click here to ZOOM5Click here to ZOOM7

 

 

Technion’s Nobel Laureates in Chemistry – Collect the stamp, and watch this space for a New Nobel Edition!


ISRAEL POST – INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF CHEMISTRY 2011

 

Technion Prof. Ehud Keinan, President of the Israel Chemical Society, had the vision to celebrate the international year of chemistry in a manner suited to the world-class position of Israel’s three Nobel Laureates in science. With determination and application, he engineered the release of official stamps celebrating the Year of Chemistry, and Israel’s Nobel Laureates.
Ubiquitin
Why our proteins must die so that we may live
Proteins are the machines that drive our bodies. They are responsible for all our activities, from the beating of our hearts, to walking, seeing, hearing, digestion, respiration and even the secretion of waste materials. Unlike useful items that surround us, like furniture and clothing, our bodies’ proteins are dynamic. They are constantly being destroyed and rebuilt, again and again. Our bodies destroy on a daily basis up to 10% of our proteins and generate new ones instead. This phenomenon raises interesting questions: why does this process occur at all, and how does it occur? Which diseases would happen if this mechanism was to fail? How can we cure such diseases? As part of the body’s quality control mechanism, proteins are destroyed after fulfilling their specific function in case they have been damaged by heat, by pollutants, by genetic mutation, or simply because they are no longer needed. Professors Aaron Ciechanover and Avram Hershko of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, and Irwin Rose of the University of California, Irvine, USA, were jointly awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering the mechanism that removes damaged or unnecessary proteins. These proteins are labeled for destruction by another small protein called ubiquitin, whose general structure is shown on the stamp. The structure was adopted from W. J. Cook and his coworkers, the Journal of Molecular Biology, 1987. Once tagged by this “kiss of death” the labeled proteins are removed by a biological shredding machine called the proteasome, while sparing healthy, untagged proteins. Aberrations in this protein destruction process may result in numerous sicknesses, including certain types of cancers and brain diseases. Many pharmaceutical companies are working to develop drugs to combat such diseases. One such drug to treat multiple myeloma, which is a form of blood cancer, is already used clinically.


Ehud Keinan
Professor of Chemistry
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology,
President of the Israel Chemical Society,
Editor in Chief, Israel Journal of Chemistry,
Chairman of the Chemistry Committee,
Ministry of Education
 
Dr. Joerg Harms of the University of Hamburg is
acknowledged for the ribosome graphics.
Technical Details:
Issue: January 2011
Design: Haimi Kivkovitch
Stamp Size: 30 mm x 40 mm
Plate nos: 823 (two phosphor bars)
824 (two phosphor bars)
Sheet of 15 stamps, Tabs: 5
Printers: Joh. Enschede, The Netherlands
Method of printing: Offset
 

The Technion Nobel Tradition

1 Comment

The Technion Nobel Laureates

Nobel Laureate Albert Einstein used to play violin in a string quartet with historic Technion architect and faculty member Prof. Alexander Baerwald. In the recession after WW1, dreams of making the Technion a functioning reality were slim, and Einstein was invited to come visit the waiting buildings designed by his friend and to advise on the dream of opening a technical institute in Haifa. On that day, the Nobel Laureate and his wife planted two trees to mark the occasion. On his return to Berlin, Einstein would open and chair the world’s first Technion society – the initiation of an apparatus that would generate a century of progress, teaching and expansion as the decade by decade, the Technion could anticpate and meet the needs of a fledgling nation.
On the 100th anniversary of the Technion’s first cornerstone, Technion’s Prof. Dan Shechtman was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. He is today Technion’s third Nobel Laureate, joining Prof. Avraham Hershko and Aaron Ciechanover. All three of them follow the spirit of scientific integrity and excellence in pure research displayed by founding father Albert Einstein, to whom the Technion owes so much. Scroll down to absorb a little of the Technion’s Nobel legacy.


LOKEY PARK ~ TECHNION GARDEN OF NOBEL LAUREATES

 

 

Click here to ZOOM4
Lokey Park – a garden of trees planted by
global Nobel Laureates at Technion City.

Technion 2011 Nobel Laureate Danny Shectman will be joining a list of Nobel Laureates who planted trees to celebrate their visit to Technion. The tradition was begun by Prof. Albert Einstein – Chairman of the first Technion Society, who planted two palm trees in 1923 in front of the Technion’s majestic first building in Hadar, Haifa.
1921: Albert Einstein initiates the Technion Nobel tradition.

Nobel Laureate Trees planted at Lokey Park and on Technion soil.

  • Prof. Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, UK; Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, 2009
  • Professor Ada Yonath, Israel; Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, 2009
  • Professor Linda B. Buck, USA; Nobel Laureate in Physiology/Medicine 2004
  • Prof. Avram Hershko, Israel; Nobel Laureate in Chemistry 2004
  • Prof. Aaron Ciechanover, Israel; Nobel Laureate in Chemistry 2004
  • Prof. Tim Hunt. U.K; Nobel Laureate in Medicine, 2001
  • Prof. Kurt Wüthrich, Switzerland; Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, 2002
  • Prof. Günter Blobel, USA; Nobel Laureate in Medicine, 1999
  • Prof. Ferid Murad, USA; Nobel Laureate in Medicine, 1998
  • Prof. Jean-Marie Lehn, France; Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, 1987
  • Prof. David Gross, USA; Nobel Laureate in Physics, 2004
  • Prof. Elie Wiesel, USA; Nobel Laureate in Peace, 1986
  • Rita Levi-Montalcini, Italy; Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1986
  • Albert Einstein, Germany/USA at old site; Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923


Click here to ZOOM2Click here to ZOOM3Click here to ZOOM4Click here to ZOOM5Click here to ZOOM7

 

 

Technion’s Nobel Laureates in Chemistry – Collect the stamp, and watch this space for a New Nobel Edition!


ISRAEL POST – INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF CHEMISTRY 2011

 

Technion Prof. Ehud Keinan, President of the Israel Chemical Society, had the vision to celebrate the international year of chemistry in a manner suited to the world-class position of Israel’s three Nobel Laureates in science. With determination and application, he engineered the release of official stamps celebrating the Year of Chemistry, and Israel’s Nobel Laureates.
Ubiquitin
Why our proteins must die so that we may live
Proteins are the machines that drive our bodies. They are responsible for all our activities, from the beating of our hearts, to walking, seeing, hearing, digestion, respiration and even the secretion of waste materials. Unlike useful items that surround us, like furniture and clothing, our bodies’ proteins are dynamic. They are constantly being destroyed and rebuilt, again and again. Our bodies destroy on a daily basis up to 10% of our proteins and generate new ones instead. This phenomenon raises interesting questions: why does this process occur at all, and how does it occur? Which diseases would happen if this mechanism was to fail? How can we cure such diseases? As part of the body’s quality control mechanism, proteins are destroyed after fulfilling their specific function in case they have been damaged by heat, by pollutants, by genetic mutation, or simply because they are no longer needed. Professors Aaron Ciechanover and Avram Hershko of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, and Irwin Rose of the University of California, Irvine, USA, were jointly awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering the mechanism that removes damaged or unnecessary proteins. These proteins are labeled for destruction by another small protein called ubiquitin, whose general structure is shown on the stamp. The structure was adopted from W. J. Cook and his coworkers, the Journal of Molecular Biology, 1987. Once tagged by this “kiss of death” the labeled proteins are removed by a biological shredding machine called the proteasome, while sparing healthy, untagged proteins. Aberrations in this protein destruction process may result in numerous sicknesses, including certain types of cancers and brain diseases. Many pharmaceutical companies are working to develop drugs to combat such diseases. One such drug to treat multiple myeloma, which is a form of blood cancer, is already used clinically.


Ehud Keinan
Professor of Chemistry
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology,
President of the Israel Chemical Society,
Editor in Chief, Israel Journal of Chemistry,
Chairman of the Chemistry Committee,
Ministry of Education
 
Dr. Joerg Harms of the University of Hamburg is
acknowledged for the ribosome graphics.
Technical Details:
Issue: January 2011
Design: Haimi Kivkovitch
Stamp Size: 30 mm x 40 mm
Plate nos: 823 (two phosphor bars)
824 (two phosphor bars)
Sheet of 15 stamps, Tabs: 5
Printers: Joh. Enschede, The Netherlands
Method of printing: Offset
 

Happy Passover from Technion President Peretz Lavie.

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HAPPY PASSOVER 2011 FROM ALL THE TECHNION FAMILY!

Passover 2011 Message from Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie.


“Only when we have the courage to regard ourselves as a nation, only when we respect ourselves, can we win the respect of others; or rather, the respect of others will then come of itself.”
Technion founding father Albert Einstein, 1931.
.

Welcome to the April 2011 Passover issue of TechnionLIVE. At Technion, we are deeply aware of the central themes of freedom and national realization embedded within the Passover story. We were slaves in Egypt. We could have continued that way for generations, but there was a critical shift in attitude. We stopped seeing ourselves as the “problem”, and we became the solution. We took responsibility for our position, individually and as a whole, and we took an unconditional movement into our own integrity. Together, the entire Jewish workforce of Egypt got up and left. The reward for this act of responsibility and unity was great: it initiated a process in which we were to receive the land of Israel.


At the opening of the last century, we were again scattered around the planet, enduring antisemitism, persecution, and exclusion. We could complain and mourn injustice, or we could take responsibility. Embedded in the vision of Theodore Herzl was a movement into vision, responsibility and application in which freedom will always be the outcome.


The inspired question then, as ever, was: “How do we do it?” How do we build a nation from nothing? Jews were barred from technical universities and professions, and there just wasn’t the skilled manpower to begin laying the foundations of an independent state. Back then, we took responsibility, and the answer was a technical university in Haifa. 99 years ago, in 1912, the first cornerstone was laid. Nearly 100 years later, millions of people in Israel and across the world feel the reward of this freedom.

Gathering to lay the 1st cornerstone of the Technion, 1912.
This is the spirit of Technion. We don’t see problems, we see opportunities. We take responsibility for real concerns, and stone by stone, we build the basis of our freedom. 
One person who for many of us, really embodied this wisdom, was the great philanthropist and unshakeable friend of the State of Israel and the Technion Henry Taub, who sadly passed away on April 1st, 2011. A giant of his generation, Henry left his imprint on every aspect of Technion life and shaped the building of its campus. We have lost a true and beloved friend.
The past month has revealed many global challenges. In Japan, nature has shown us how truly powerful it is, unfortunately, with devastating effects. One of our former students of physics from Japan, Shumon Mor, wrote to us of the “nightmare” happening in his country.  We send our sincere hopes that recovery will come swiftly and as painlessly as possible. We also thoroughly believe and trust in the ability of our Japanese colleagues to find even smarter ways to rebuild their nation, and to meet the challenge of finding ways to heal the wounds, creating a Japan that will be stronger than ever before.


Events in Japan highlight the energy choices facing nations today. The depletion of fossil fuels brings a serious risk of war, terrorism and poverty. Events in Japan have shown that the nuclear power alternative has grave drawbacks. New energy sources – such as wind, solar, hydrogen and biofuels – need researching, improving and developing in order to power tomorrow’s world. We also need to research smarter, cleaner and more efficient ways to use conventional energy sources, including oil, coal, and Israel’s newfound gas resources. Also here, in the establishment of the multidisciplinary Grand Technion Energy Program (GTEP)  we took a critical step of responsibility and vision, through which we will gain our freedom in the future.

Following events in Japan, an understandable response is to ask: “Could it happen in Israel?” The answer, unfortunately, from a top Technion disaster expert Prof. Avi Kirshenbaum, is: “Yes, it could.” It is our task as scientists to come with the simulations, crisis research, building codes, sensors, and systems that will make the difference should Israel ever face a similar challenge as its friend, Japan.

Across Technion, spring is in the air and the green spaces have become a forest of spring flowers. The Zielony Graduate Student Village is getting its final touches, as it will soon become a thriving community of top graduate researchers, their partners and young children. Some of them will be pursuing advanced multidisciplinary degrees in Nanotechnology or Energy Science. These are the graduates with the spirit of responsibility and freedom that have made Israel great, some of whom you can read about at TechnionLIVE.
We sincerely wish you all a Happy Passover, and that you will feel your strength and unity with the whole Technion Family. Together, we take responsibility for our shared future, and together, we celebrate in freedom.