Avram Hershko life and biography

Avram Hershko's father was forced into slave labor for the Nazis, then captured by Russian forces, who also used him as a slave. The rest of his family, including Hershko himself, were among the Jews destined for exported to Auschwitz, and his grandparents were killed there. By an anonymous bribe, however, a few randomly selected cattle cars were diverted to Austria instead, and through this quirk of fate the Hershko family survived. He was a toddler when he left Hungary, and 13 when his family relocated to Israel.

Hershko won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2004, for the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation, the means by which the cells of most living things discard unnecessary proteins. Hershko conducted his research at the Fox Chase Cancer Center about thirty-five years before winning his Nobel honors, shared with his collaborators, Aaron Ciechanover and Irwin Rose. On the day the prizes were announced, he was on a picnic with his grandchildren, and he first heard the news when he heard his name on a radio newscast.

He is currently a Distinguished Professor at the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion in Haifa.

Awards:

Lasker Award 2000
Nobel Prize for Chemistry YEAR (with Aaron Ciechanover and Irwin Rose)
National Academy of Sciences

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