Technion's Ciechanover Inducted Into National Academy of Sciences
Friday, May 2, 2008
By: Kevin Hattori

Technion-Israel Institute of Technology Professor and 2004 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Aaron Ciechanover was inducted as a foreign associate member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in a ceremony held on April 26th in Washington, D.C. Membership in the NAS is one of the highest honors for scientists or engineers in the United States.

The NAS currently has approximately 2,100 members and 380 foreign associates, including a dozen Israelis (three of whom - Ciechanover, Prof. Avram Hershko and Prof. Emeritus Jacob Ziv of the Electrical Engineering Faculty - are from the Technion). Nearly 200 NAS members have won Nobel Prizes. Among the group's most famous members are Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Orville Wright, and Alexander Graham Bell.

Ciechanover is best known for his Nobel prize-winning research, with Hershko and Dr. Irwin Rose of the University of California, Irvine, which unveiled the crucial role played by the protein ubiquitin in determining the breakdown and recycling of cellular proteins.

Ciechanover is a past recipient of the Israel Prize in Biology; the 2002 Emet (Truth) Prize in Life Sciences and Medicine; the 2000 Albert and Mary Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research; and the 1999 Wachter Foundation Prize in Austria. He is a member of a number of prestigious organizations, including the European Molecular Biology Organization, the Asia-Pacific International Molecular Biology Network and the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology is Israel's leading science and technology university. Home to the country's winners of the Nobel Prize in science, it commands a worldwide reputation for its pioneering work in nanotechnology, computer science, biotechnology, water-resource management, materials engineering, aerospace and medicine. The Technion's 18 faculties and 29 research centers and institutes in Haifa are home to 12,500 students and more than 825 faculty members. The majority of the founders and managers of Israel's high-tech companies are alumni.

Based in New York City, the American Technion Society (ATS) is the leading American organization supporting higher education in Israel. The ATS has a distinguished record of achievement having raised more than $1.4 billion since its founding in 1941. A nationwide membership organization with 22 offices around the country, the ATS is driven by the belief that the economic future of Israel is in high technology and the future of high technology in Israel is at the Technion.

For more information, contact Kevin Hattori via email or call 212-407-6319.