Invited Speakers
Our plenary speakers
The ubiquitin proteolytic system: from basic mechanisms through human diseases, and on to drug targeting
Aaron Ciechanover
Aaron Ciechanover was born in Israel in 1947. He is a distinguished Professor in the Technion in Haifa, Israel. He received his M.Sc. (1971) and M.D. (1973) from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and his Ph.D. from the Technion (1982). There, as a graduate student with Dr. Avram Hershko and in collaboration with Dr. Irwin Rose from Philadelphia, they discovered that tagging of protein substrates with ubiquitin, target them for degradation. Among the many prizes he received are the 2000 Albert Lasker Award, the 2003 Israel Prize, and the 2004 Nobel Prize (Chemistry; shared with Drs. Hershko and Rose). Among many learned bodies, he is a member of the Israeli National Academies of Sciences and Humanities, and the National Academies of Sciences (NAS) and Medicine (NAM) of the USA.
Full circle after 40 years: plasmids to… neurobiology?
Stanley N. Cohen
Dr. Stanley N. Cohen is the Kwoh-Ting Li Professor of Genetics and Professor of Medicine at Stanford University. Dr. Cohen and his colleague Dr. Herbert W. Boyer revolutionized the disciplines of biology and chemistry in 1973 with their discovery of methods to transplant and clone genes, and are the inventors on the basic patents underlying the field of genetic engineering. He is the author of more than 360 scientific publications and the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the National Medal of Science, the National Medal of Technology, the Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research, the Wolf Prize in Medicine, and the Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine.
From supramolecular chemistry towards adaptive chemistry: bioorganic and biomedical aspects
Jean-Marie Lehn
Jean-Marie Lehn is presently Professor at the University of Strasbourg Institute for Advanced Study (USIAS). He shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1987 for his studies on the chemical basis of "molecular recognition" (i.e. the way in which a receptor molecule recognizes and selectively binds a substrate), which also plays a fundamental role in biological processes. Over the years his work led him to the definition of a new field of chemistry, which he has proposed calling "supramolecular chemistry" as it deals with the complex entities formed by the association of two or more chemical species held together by non-covalent intermolecular forces, whereas molecular chemistry concerns the entities constructed from atoms linked by covalent bonds. Subsequently, the area developed into the chemistry of "self-organization" processes and more recently towards "adaptive chemistry", dynamic networks and complex systems.
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