Aaron Ciechanover, M.D., D.Sc.
Nobel laureate Ciechanover to speak at Discovery Lecture
Israeli researcher Aaron Ciechanover, M.D., D.Sc., who shared the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering how proteins are broken down in the body, will deliver the next Discovery Lecture on March 19.
Ciechanover is a Distinguished Research Professor in the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Research Institute at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa.
His lecture, entitled “The ubiquitin proteolytic system: From basic mechanisms through human diseases and onto drug targeting,” will begin at 4 p.m. in 208 Light Hall.
Ubiquitin is the label attached to proteins that are to be degraded by cellular “waste disposers” called proteasomes. The discovery of this system in the 1980s by Ciechanover and fellow Nobel laureates Avram Herschko, M.D., Ph.D., and Irwin Rose, Ph.D., has advanced understanding of the role that aberrant proteolysis plays in certain cancers and neurodegenerative disorders.
Ciechanover's lecture is sponsored by the Department of Pediatrics.
For a complete schedule of the Discovery Lecture series and archived video of previous lectures, go to www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/discoveryseries.