The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2004

 

 

 The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2004

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2004 “for the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation” jointly to Aaron Ciechanover, Avram Hershko and Irwin Rose

The discovery was made at the beginning of the 1980s at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, USA, jointly by the three scientists.

  Proteins that are marked for hacking into small pieces
 

It has long been clear how proteins are built up in the cell. But the opposite, how they are broken down, was long thought to be less exciting to study. This year’s Nobel Laureates, Aaron Ciechanover, Avram Hershko and Irwin Rose, went against the stream and, at the beginning of the 1980s, discovered one of the cell’s most important control mechanisms, controlled protein degradation.

  

prize winners

Irwin Rose
College of Medicine, University of California, Irvine, USA		 Avram Hershko Rappaport Institute, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology Haifa, Israel Aaron Ciechanover Rappaport Institute, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology Haifa, Israel
  Contents:
| Introduction – Proteins that are marked for hacking into small pieces | The cell – a teeming mini-workshop | Ubiquitin | Proteins are life’s building-blocks | What proteins are marked? | Prevents self-polination | How are sex cells formed? | Further reading | Credits |
  Web Adapted Version of the Nobel Poster from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

To cite this section
MLA style: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2004. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach 2025. Wed. 9 Apr 2025. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2004/8711-the-nobel-prize-in-chemistry-2004-2004-8/>

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