Tag Archives: Technion

The future: knife-free non-invasive cancer surgery.

Insightec – voted a top innovator by TIME Magazine for its revolutionary ultrasound system for non-invasive surgery, is a powerhouse of Technion graduates. Here, Yoav Medan, who has taught at the department of electrical engineering at the Technion and who has graduated from there in aeronautical engineering, discusses how this patented Israeli system could soon be saving lives across the planet.

Imagine having a surgery with no knives involved. At TEDMED, surgeon Yoav Medan shares a technique that uses MRI to find trouble spots and focused ultrasound to treat such issues as brain lesions, uterine fibroids and several kinds of cancerous growths.

‘TIME’ honors InSightec’s Focused Ultrasound

By Viva Sarah Press
December 06, 2011
TIME magazine recently called InSightec’s MR Guided Focused Ultrasound (MRgFUS) one of the 50 best inventions of the year.

“Magnetic-resonance-imaging (MRI) and ultrasound technologies are each remarkable in their own right, but combine them and you get something life-changing,” the magazine wrote about InSightec’s technique.

Read full story at Israel 21C

Yoav Medan

Vice President and Chief Systems Architect, Insightec

Yoav Medan, Vice President and Chief Systems Architect, is responsible for developing new platforms for the Magnetic Resonance guided Focused Ultrasound technology.
Prior to joining InSightec in 1999, Dr. Medan spent 17 years in various senior research and management positions at the IBM Research Division and was elected to the IBM Academy of Technology.
In addition to technical and managerial experience, Dr. Medan has academic experience as well, teaching at the EE department at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, in addition to serving as a lecturer for Avionic Systems at the Aeronautical Engineering faculty. He is also a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Dr. Medan has widely published and holds nine IBM as well as several other patents. He was awarded the IBM Outstanding Technical Achievement Award, the 3rd Invention Achievement Award and the Outstanding Research Division Award.
Dr. Medan received his D.Sc. and B.Sc.(Summa Cum Laude) in Aeronautical Engineering from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, and a M.B.A diploma from Bradford University, UK.

The focused ultrasound beam can be seen during the treatment to ensure taht the ultrasound travels through a safe pathway to the focus. This ensures that the correct region is targeted.  Sonication parameters can be adjusted to optimize the treatment and are monitored by the physician during the treatment.

The future: knife-free non-invasive cancer surgery.

Insightec – voted a top innovator by TIME Magazine for its revolutionary ultrasound system for non-invasive surgery, is a powerhouse of Technion graduates. Here, Yoav Medan, who has taught at the department of electrical engineering at the Technion and who has graduated from there in aeronautical engineering, discusses how this patented Israeli system could soon be saving lives across the planet.

Imagine having a surgery with no knives involved. At TEDMED, surgeon Yoav Medan shares a technique that uses MRI to find trouble spots and focused ultrasound to treat such issues as brain lesions, uterine fibroids and several kinds of cancerous growths.

‘TIME’ honors InSightec’s Focused Ultrasound

By Viva Sarah Press
December 06, 2011
TIME magazine recently called InSightec’s MR Guided Focused Ultrasound (MRgFUS) one of the 50 best inventions of the year.

“Magnetic-resonance-imaging (MRI) and ultrasound technologies are each remarkable in their own right, but combine them and you get something life-changing,” the magazine wrote about InSightec’s technique.

Read full story at Israel 21C

Yoav Medan

Vice President and Chief Systems Architect, Insightec

Yoav Medan, Vice President and Chief Systems Architect, is responsible for developing new platforms for the Magnetic Resonance guided Focused Ultrasound technology.
Prior to joining InSightec in 1999, Dr. Medan spent 17 years in various senior research and management positions at the IBM Research Division and was elected to the IBM Academy of Technology.
In addition to technical and managerial experience, Dr. Medan has academic experience as well, teaching at the EE department at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, in addition to serving as a lecturer for Avionic Systems at the Aeronautical Engineering faculty. He is also a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Dr. Medan has widely published and holds nine IBM as well as several other patents. He was awarded the IBM Outstanding Technical Achievement Award, the 3rd Invention Achievement Award and the Outstanding Research Division Award.
Dr. Medan received his D.Sc. and B.Sc.(Summa Cum Laude) in Aeronautical Engineering from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, and a M.B.A diploma from Bradford University, UK.

The focused ultrasound beam can be seen during the treatment to ensure taht the ultrasound travels through a safe pathway to the focus. This ensures that the correct region is targeted.  Sonication parameters can be adjusted to optimize the treatment and are monitored by the physician during the treatment.

Nobel Prize lecture in Chemistry, Stockholm.

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.

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

The Nobel Rap… In Israel, high science is STREET CRED

Some great Israeli artists, inspired by the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to Dan Shechtman of Technion – Israel Institute of Technology…! A rap song for history.

מלים: איתי נבו
לחן עיבוד והפקה מוסיקלית: קובי אשרת

מבצעים: הרכב ההיפ הופ Mononova וקובי אשרת

הקלטה: אולפני Sound Garden ת”א

טכנאי הקלטה ומיקס: רועי עוזרי

יש לציין שכל המשתתפים הנ”ל עשו זאת בהתנדבות מלאה

Notice the Quasicrystal Tie?
You too could be wearing one soon!

The Nobel Rap… In Israel, high science is STREET CRED

Some great Israeli artists, inspired by the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to Dan Shechtman of Technion – Israel Institute of Technology…! A rap song for history.

מלים: איתי נבו
לחן עיבוד והפקה מוסיקלית: קובי אשרת

מבצעים: הרכב ההיפ הופ Mononova וקובי אשרת

הקלטה: אולפני Sound Garden ת”א

טכנאי הקלטה ומיקס: רועי עוזרי

יש לציין שכל המשתתפים הנ”ל עשו זאת בהתנדבות מלאה

Notice the Quasicrystal Tie?
You too could be wearing one soon!

Technion LIVE e-newsletter December 2011, breaking science & technology news from Israel

December 2011
Alzheimer’s Drug Development Microsoft Joins Technion Solar Nano Power Nobel Prize 2011

From the President

On the eve of the awarding of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Distinguished Professor Dan Shechtman – the third Technion professor to win a Nobel in 7 years – we are excited to welcome you to this edition of Technion Live. The Technion remains active in its quest to meet the scientific, technological, economic and social challenges of the future. These are matters of science and technology, but also of nurturing a sensitivity to social tensions and the needs of the wider community.
Technion is an exemplary model of providing equal opportunity to the various sectors of Israeli society, as seen in our film Partners in Progress. We are also proud to announce the launch of an undergraduate degree program to serve the orthodox community in Bnei Brak. The ingenuity of staff and students in answering the credit crunch with a scheme for exchanging books at bus stops (bookshops at bus shelters) – has already been applied by several municipalities.
On the eve of our cornerstone centennial, our pride and our hopes for the future are shared by the whole Technion community of students, faculty, friends and supporters. Together, we have the means, ingenuity and willpower to make our world a better place.

Technion President
Prof. Peretz Lavie

Nobel Prize 2011: Live Events
On 10th December, 2011 Distinguished Prof. Dan Shechtman, holder of the Philip Tobias Chair, will receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Join us for live coverage in Israel and Sweden!
The Quasi Caucus
Science is a process of evolution as the community of scientists work together, each building on the discoveries of the ones that went before. Thus, Shechtman’s discovery of quasicrystals didn’t negate the existing science of crystallography, but reopened the field of materials science to new exploration. Soon after his discovery, a league of gifted scientists stepped in to substantiate the breakthrough and to take it forward.
A Whole New Matter
A look at one of the applications of the quasicrystal discovery – this time at the unique qualities of quasicrystals as transporters of light. The groundbreaking photonic research was published by Distinguished Prof. Mordechai Segev and his team at the Technion Faculty of Physics.
Tie/Scarf competition
A new trend among world intelligentsia is to acquire and wear the now famous 100% silk quasicrystal tie, as worn by Prof. Shechtman, President Peretz Lavie and Prime Minister of the State of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu. This is your chance to win one too, or a silk quasicrystal scarf for women. Just compose a clever message about the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and post it at one of our many social media venues.
On Screen
Phone call from Stockholm
Oct. 5, 2011 the telephone rings, Stockholm calling… Technion Distinguished Prof. Dan Shechtman has been named as this year’s Nobel laureate in Chemistry. Share the initial excitement and celebrations – including a science lesson for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Partners in Progress
For the past decade, the Landa Equal Opportunities Project has successfully prepared Israeli Arab students to excel at Technion, fully integrating them into the Technion community.
Israel’s Titan
Technion is home to Israel’s only Titan – Transmission Electron Microscope. Prof. Wayne Kaplan, dean of the department of Materials Engineering explains how something so large is needed to examine the dimensions of the tiny.
Mechanics of the Millennium
From developing robots that perform surgeries, designing renewable energy systems, manufacturing machines smaller than the human hair (nano mechanics), and integrating optical systems, to developing giant printers and advanced aircraft, a visit to the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering unveils the future.
Ivy League & Israel
“Like Cornell, Technion looks beyond borders. In its mission statement, it is “dedicated to the creation of knowledge and the development of human capital and leadership, for the advancement of the State of Israel and all humanity.” Read more about what the partners in the bid of the New York City Tech Campus have in common.

(l-r) Presidents David J. Skorton and Peretz Lavie
Microsoft joins Technion
Through a new five-year joint research and education partnership, Microsoft Research and Technion will explore scientific and technological insights in e-commerce, such as online advertising and the use of social networks for commerce. Microsoft will invest $1.5 million (U.S.) over the next five years.
Bridge to Somewhere
Haaretz reports on the state-of-the-art in graduate student accommodation at the Stanley Shalom Zielony Graduate Student Village, Technion City.
Cancer Cells on the Run
Researchers from Technion and Utrecht University in the Netherlands show that chemotherapy drugs can increase the risk of a metastatic process in mice.
Dr. Yuval Shaked of the Technion and Prof. Emile Voest of Utrecht University published their findings in the scientific journal, Cancer Research.
Solar power – Nano power
Technion researchers polarize a nanometric-sized crystal by changing the composition of surrounding molecules. In the future, this could improve efficiency of 3G solar photovoltaic cells.
3 Million to Perfect Alzheimer’s Drug
A consortium of four investors, including the Technion Research and Development Foundation Ltd. (TRDF), has completed a $3 million financing round for Israel-based Avraham Pharmaceuticals to further the development of a novel drug for Alzheimer’s disease.
Remembrance & Redemption
A pioneer in using a shared love of advanced science to heal historic wounds, former Technion President Distinguished Prof. Yitzhak Apeloig from the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry received the Order of Merit (First Degree) of the Federal Republic of Germany at a ceremony held at Technion on November 28, 2011.

(l-r) Distinguished Prof. Yitzhak Apeloig and
H.E. Andreas Michaelis
Harvey Prize Winners
Prof. Sir Richard Friend of the University of Cambridge, UK, and Prof. Judea Pearl from the University of California, Los Angeles, are the winners of the Technion’s 2011 Harvey Prize in Science and Technology. The prize ceremony will take place at Technion, on March 29, 2012.

(l-r) Prof. Sir Richard Friend and Prof. Judea Pearl
People of the Book
Technion Prof. Shlomo Maital looks at the Technion ingenuity behind the new people-generated trend: self-assembling libraries in bus stops across Israel.
Unsubscribe from Technion Live

Technion LIVE e-newsletter December 2011, breaking science & technology news from Israel

December 2011
Alzheimer’s Drug Development Microsoft Joins Technion Solar Nano Power Nobel Prize 2011

From the President

On the eve of the awarding of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Distinguished Professor Dan Shechtman – the third Technion professor to win a Nobel in 7 years – we are excited to welcome you to this edition of Technion Live. The Technion remains active in its quest to meet the scientific, technological, economic and social challenges of the future. These are matters of science and technology, but also of nurturing a sensitivity to social tensions and the needs of the wider community.
Technion is an exemplary model of providing equal opportunity to the various sectors of Israeli society, as seen in our film Partners in Progress. We are also proud to announce the launch of an undergraduate degree program to serve the orthodox community in Bnei Brak. The ingenuity of staff and students in answering the credit crunch with a scheme for exchanging books at bus stops (bookshops at bus shelters) – has already been applied by several municipalities.
On the eve of our cornerstone centennial, our pride and our hopes for the future are shared by the whole Technion community of students, faculty, friends and supporters. Together, we have the means, ingenuity and willpower to make our world a better place.

Technion President
Prof. Peretz Lavie

Nobel Prize 2011: Live Events
On 10th December, 2011 Distinguished Prof. Dan Shechtman, holder of the Philip Tobias Chair, will receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Join us for live coverage in Israel and Sweden!
The Quasi Caucus
Science is a process of evolution as the community of scientists work together, each building on the discoveries of the ones that went before. Thus, Shechtman’s discovery of quasicrystals didn’t negate the existing science of crystallography, but reopened the field of materials science to new exploration. Soon after his discovery, a league of gifted scientists stepped in to substantiate the breakthrough and to take it forward.
A Whole New Matter
A look at one of the applications of the quasicrystal discovery – this time at the unique qualities of quasicrystals as transporters of light. The groundbreaking photonic research was published by Distinguished Prof. Mordechai Segev and his team at the Technion Faculty of Physics.
Tie/Scarf competition
A new trend among world intelligentsia is to acquire and wear the now famous 100% silk quasicrystal tie, as worn by Prof. Shechtman, President Peretz Lavie and Prime Minister of the State of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu. This is your chance to win one too, or a silk quasicrystal scarf for women. Just compose a clever message about the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and post it at one of our many social media venues.
On Screen
Phone call from Stockholm
Oct. 5, 2011 the telephone rings, Stockholm calling… Technion Distinguished Prof. Dan Shechtman has been named as this year’s Nobel laureate in Chemistry. Share the initial excitement and celebrations – including a science lesson for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Partners in Progress
For the past decade, the Landa Equal Opportunities Project has successfully prepared Israeli Arab students to excel at Technion, fully integrating them into the Technion community.
Israel’s Titan
Technion is home to Israel’s only Titan – Transmission Electron Microscope. Prof. Wayne Kaplan, dean of the department of Materials Engineering explains how something so large is needed to examine the dimensions of the tiny.
Mechanics of the Millennium
From developing robots that perform surgeries, designing renewable energy systems, manufacturing machines smaller than the human hair (nano mechanics), and integrating optical systems, to developing giant printers and advanced aircraft, a visit to the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering unveils the future.
Ivy League & Israel
“Like Cornell, Technion looks beyond borders. In its mission statement, it is “dedicated to the creation of knowledge and the development of human capital and leadership, for the advancement of the State of Israel and all humanity.” Read more about what the partners in the bid of the New York City Tech Campus have in common.

(l-r) Presidents David J. Skorton and Peretz Lavie
Microsoft joins Technion
Through a new five-year joint research and education partnership, Microsoft Research and Technion will explore scientific and technological insights in e-commerce, such as online advertising and the use of social networks for commerce. Microsoft will invest $1.5 million (U.S.) over the next five years.
Bridge to Somewhere
Haaretz reports on the state-of-the-art in graduate student accommodation at the Stanley Shalom Zielony Graduate Student Village, Technion City.
Cancer Cells on the Run
Researchers from Technion and Utrecht University in the Netherlands show that chemotherapy drugs can increase the risk of a metastatic process in mice.
Dr. Yuval Shaked of the Technion and Prof. Emile Voest of Utrecht University published their findings in the scientific journal, Cancer Research.
Solar power – Nano power
Technion researchers polarize a nanometric-sized crystal by changing the composition of surrounding molecules. In the future, this could improve efficiency of 3G solar photovoltaic cells.
3 Million to Perfect Alzheimer’s Drug
A consortium of four investors, including the Technion Research and Development Foundation Ltd. (TRDF), has completed a $3 million financing round for Israel-based Avraham Pharmaceuticals to further the development of a novel drug for Alzheimer’s disease.
Remembrance & Redemption
A pioneer in using a shared love of advanced science to heal historic wounds, former Technion President Distinguished Prof. Yitzhak Apeloig from the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry received the Order of Merit (First Degree) of the Federal Republic of Germany at a ceremony held at Technion on November 28, 2011.

(l-r) Distinguished Prof. Yitzhak Apeloig and
H.E. Andreas Michaelis
Harvey Prize Winners
Prof. Sir Richard Friend of the University of Cambridge, UK, and Prof. Judea Pearl from the University of California, Los Angeles, are the winners of the Technion’s 2011 Harvey Prize in Science and Technology. The prize ceremony will take place at Technion, on March 29, 2012.

(l-r) Prof. Sir Richard Friend and Prof. Judea Pearl
People of the Book
Technion Prof. Shlomo Maital looks at the Technion ingenuity behind the new people-generated trend: self-assembling libraries in bus stops across Israel.
Unsubscribe from Technion Live

Israel Science Reaches for the Sun



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.

The Technion Nobel Tradition

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