"If they continue to cut education, we won't have Nobel Prizes, nor will we have technological achievements in high-tech" says the winner in an interview with the science website
The Nobel Prize won yesterday by Prof. Avraham Hershko and Prof. Aharon Chachanover together with their American partner Irwin Rose is actually the first pure Israeli scientific Nobel Prize. If you take into account that the previous prizes were in literature, the Nobel Peace Prize and the Nobel Prize for Economics to a former Israeli whose research he did not carry out at all in Israel.
However, the prestigious award is probably less important to the country's political elite than an Olympic gold medal, with all the importance of winning it. 24 hours after the win, the Minister of Education did not call Limor Livnat nor Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to congratulate the winners. It should be noted that the President of the State issued a congratulatory message on the win and the Minister of Science Ilan Shelgi called to congratulate.
The win is a result of days when science received much more budgets and importance. At the press conference held yesterday on the occasion of the announcement of receiving the award, Prof. Chachanover said that "we don't see it, but one day we will find ourselves as a ninth world country - not a third." He wants to recruit an excellent person and he lacks 50 thousand dollars for this recruitment. "
And the Minister of Education had no problem contacting the winners by phone. I was able to reach Prof. Hershko on the first dial and he happily answered my questions.
How do you feel after such a win?
Happy, for the family, and also for the country. It was nice to see that the news started with the words finally good news in Israel.
How do you explain what you have achieved in a vernacular language?
"The award was given in chemistry but the main implication is in medicine. It's a 35-year job. It will be difficult to summarize in one sentence, a chemical, biochemical and biological background is also needed. In principle, the research revealed how the proteins are broken down in our cells. The proteins are not just something we eat but products of the genes which are the machines of our body. DNA works by making proteins. The body has tens of thousands of proteins and each of them performs a different action and this is how the body works.
However, after the proteins are produced and perform their action, it is necessary to break them down when they are no longer needed because then they will interfere with the body. The mechanism is actually a marking mechanism. The protein that needs to be broken down is marked by linking it to another protein called ubiquitin (unfortunately ubiquitin means 'ubiquitous' because they found it in every cell and didn't know what its role was). We found that its function is to mark proteins for degradation."
"When I say we are your faithful servant, Prof. Chachanover who was then my doctoral student at the time of the discovery and also helped us Erwin Rose who is the third winner who hosted me for a sabbatical year in his laboratory 25 years ago."
How do you arrive at such a discovery in an era when supercomputers had the same capacity as an outdated personal computer today?
"There were computers, I didn't use them. And as for the question of how we get there, then the answer is that we examine a problem that seems important but not many people are interested in because otherwise the big labs in the US will surely catch up with us. I think that a small country should focus on a specific, special, unique problem that is not yet in the world's attention and move forward with it. And the second thing that is needed is adherence to the goal. If we hadn't insisted and tried from here and tried from there we wouldn't have reached the breakthrough."
why is it important?
This is important because the proteins are the machines of the body. When a protein is not broken down at the right time, the body enters a state of disease. For example, in a disease like Parkinson's, the breakdown of proteins plays a role. So that there are no false hopes, the discovery has not yet resulted in a cure for cancer except for one drug for a certain type of cancer that was prepared, among other things, based on this information. It's basic research, not useful research yet, but basic research brings practical results over the years.
The very fact that 24 hours after winning, even science in Israel is less important than an Olympic gold medal?
I assume that the Minister of Education and the Prime Minister will still call. Tommy Lapid called this morning.
This is an important moment for Israeli science
I think it is a pride for the State of Israel for the first time to have a Nobel Prize in Science. There were Nobel Prizes for Peace and Literature, but no Nobel Prize for Science was awarded to Israel, except for the Nobel Prize in Economics, which belonged to a former Israeli.
What will you say to our legislators when they go to discuss cuts in higher education?
"It is time to think that if they cut the budgets for higher education, there will be no more Nobel Prizes, nor the technological achievements of Israeli high-tech. Achievements in science require long-term investment. It is difficult to build and easy to destroy foundations of universities. Cuts in education and scientific research. Priority should be given to education, science and higher education. They are just as important as security.
Thank you very much for the interview and again congratulations on winning
Hershko: "Thank you. Happy holiday"
And behind the scenes of the club are a few more gems. It turns out that the two have been nominated for Nobel prizes for medicine for several years. On Tuesday, the day before the award, the names of the winners of the Nobel Prizes for Medicine were announced. When the two did not win, it was put on the agenda at the Technion and on Wednesday there was such a big surprise that most of the senior officials caught the news in the middle of vacation or errands. It took them 40 minutes to regain consciousness. The Minister of Education and the Prime Minister did not have enough 24 hours to recover from the shock.
And one more thing, the president of the Technion, Prof. Yitzhak Apluig is in New York for a meeting of the Friends of the Technion Association which is scheduled to open this coming Monday. There will be something to celebrate there.
Nobel Prize in jeans and t-shirt
It can be assumed with a high degree of probability that in a country that is slightly more reformed, in a city that is a little more lazy than Haifa and a little more pompous than it, Professors Avraham Hershko and Aharon Chechanover, winners of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, would have found themselves embalmed in suits in a prestigious hall, answering the journalists' questions, a few hours after the announcement who won an award. But in Haifa, things are different in almost everything, and even a Nobel Prize won't make it change its ways. At three o'clock in the afternoon on the eve of the holiday, a car arrived at the family cottage of the Hershko family in the Ramat Golda neighborhood on the Carmel, and a man in his fifties, in jeans and a t-shirt, got out with several large bouquets of flowers. He rushed to the second floor, with a trail of photographers running after him - it's not every day that a delivery of flowers to a Nobel laureate is documented.
A minute later, another car arrived at the house with a man in his fifties in jeans and a t-shirt, who hopped up to the second floor. The photographers did not notice the shy entrance of Prof. Chachanover, Hershko's partner for the award, until the two stood with an embarrassed smile for a joint photo in the family living room. One of the Technion's senior officials mumbled an apology for the impromptu press conference not being held in one of the institution's magnificent halls: "The rabbi of the Technion would have caused us problems on a holiday." When the living room became crowded, the entourage moved to the balcony.
The phone didn't stop ringing. Judith Hershko, Aharon's wife, said that the first call in the morning came from the Prime Minister of Hungary, who asked Mena to congratulate her husband who was born there 64 years ago and immigrated to Israel at the age of 12. "If you swam 100 meters in the pool, the Minister of Education would also congratulate you," scolded one professor from relatives Remacha Chechanover, Avraham's wife, said that the phone at her home was picked up in the morning by Ben Tschai, who heard on the other end a polite man with a Swedish accent asking for his parents. "The first thing I did was run to get water," says Rest.
The two professors turned out to be relaxed people, with a lot of patience for the reporters' demand to "explain in one sentence the scientific achievement you worked on for 35 years". Only Chechenover looked at the clock from time to time, worried that he was going to miss the daily evening walk on the south coast with the regular friends. Before the press conference began, the representatives of the Technion tried to stick a fancy blue background cloth with the logo of the respected research institution to the wall of the balcony, but the scotch tape did not catch on the splash plaster.
Several interesting facts emerged from the press conference. First, it is impossible to explain in "one sentence for the housewife" the enormous scientific achievement of the two. Second, they haven't patented the feat, so they won't be billionaires anytime soon. Third, both of them even thought that they would one day receive a Nobel Prize in Medicine, so they were really surprised. Finally it turned out that, despite the fame, both continue to research vigorously and contribute to medicine.
The scientific breakthrough of the two came in the late seventies. Since then the two have developed, each in his own field in medicine and research, but even after years of not researching together it is evident that Prof. Chachanover still feels great respect for Hershko, who opened the door to research for him as a young doctoral student in the late 60s.
The most significant statement in the press conference was a warning addressed to the decision makers in the government. Such a warning coming from the Nobel Prize winners has a lot of validity, even if they are dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. "The State of Israel will always be short on resources and we need to focus on things that are important, innovative, that can be a breakthrough," said Prof. Hershko. "We won't be able to do that when the education system is collapsing."
Prof. Chachanover was more firm: "Higher education in the State of Israel is in a difficult situation. The Technion is suffering greatly, suffocated by budget strangulation. I returned four days ago from a sabbatical in the US, and I'm jealous of what they can do. It is possible to make do with slightly less budgets, but not much less."
"An event like this, which Israelis win, is rare. We have no oil, uranium or diamonds. Israel depends on higher education. Everything we have - the IDF, Rafael, a sophisticated industry depends on what we have in mind. Going to chop off this head is an act of suicide." Chechenover emphasized that the research for which he and Rashko won the Nobel began 35 years ago, and the scientific achievement was achieved a decade later. "It takes years to train scientists for achievements. The schedule for scientists is not as short as for politicians. Harming scientists today will cost us dearly in the future."
Chechenover and Hershko: "Higher education in Israel is in a difficult situation"
The winners of the Nobel Prize in Israeli chemistry, Professors Avraham Hershko and Aharon Chachanover of the Technion, criticized the government on Tuesday regarding the future of science in Israel. This was a warning, that when it comes from the mouths of Nobel Prize winners who carry out the research in Israel, it should be listened to with the most attention, even if the speakers are dressed in jeans and a T-shirt.
"The State of Israel will always be short on resources and we need to focus on things that are important, innovative and can be a breakthrough," said Prof. Hershko, "we can't do that when the education system is collapsing."
Prof. Chachanover was more firm: "Higher education in the State of Israel is in a difficult situation. The Technion is suffering greatly, suffocated by budget strangulation. I returned four days ago from a sabbatical in the USA and I am jealous of what they can afford in research. Describing the differences in black and white would be insufficient. It is possible to settle for a little less budget, but not much less. It is a fact that the Americans invest a lot and yet reap most of the Nobel prizes. An event like this, which Israelis win, is rare. We have no oil, uranium or diamonds. Israel depends on higher education. Everything we have - the IDF, Rafael, sophisticated industry - depends on what we have in mind. Going to chop off this head is an act of suicide. One more thing should be remembered: the product that Israel received today, the award, is not an off-the-shelf product. We started 35 years ago, we reached an achievement 25 years ago. It takes years to train scientists for achievements. The schedule for scientists is not as short as for politicians. Harming scientists today will cost us dearly in the future."
