Korenberg, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, said these things during a lecture at Bar Ilan on the occasion of receiving an honorary doctorate
The cessation of investment in basic research is a strategic threat to the existence of the State of Israel. This is what Prof. Roger Kornberg, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2006, warns, who this week (Tuesday, May 12) was awarded an honorary doctorate at Bar Ilan University, as part of the events of the university's board of trustees.
Prof. Kornberg described the sad state of scientific research in the State of Israel which has reached a crisis and which due to the lack of budgeting that would allow the return of outstanding Israeli researchers to the Israeli academy.
"Thanks to my relationship with the Hebrew University and through it with the entire higher education system in Israel, I recognize the fact that Israel has many talents in the field. Lots of good students study in labs. The limiting factor is insufficient support mainly from the government for basic research."
"In the last five years, the faculties dealing with basic science such as those at the Hebrew University, but the same is true for all other universities, have shrunk by 30% while the corresponding faculties in the US have doubled. This will mean that young and talented people studying at Bar Ilan, in Jerusalem, and the other universities, will have nowhere to return after finishing their post-doctorate in the absence of academic positions. These talented people, who could have discovered the discoveries that would form the basis for the next generation of research and development in Israel, they and their children are lost to the State of Israel. "
"The financial starvation of basic science in Israeli universities has reached crisis proportions. In the early days of the state, when Israel faced an existential threat and there was no money for food, the heads of the state established good universities, created international level laboratories and gave good researchers a place to work there. Today, when the country is financially strong, it is rather ironic that now there is not enough money to support basic science and it is in decline."
"This is a problem that governments all over the world always fail to understand. The timeline of development between basic science and its application is very long. Today we enjoy the fruits of the investments that Ben-Gurion invested in the 25s. The lack of investment today will cause a lack of a basis for economic growth in XNUMX years, and this will be nothing less than a threat to the existence of the State of Israel." Prof. Kornberg warns.
Prof. Kornberg lectured to students and faculty members in the Faculty of Life Sciences and told them about the discoveries in the field of transcription of DNA segments (genes) into RNA in which these proteins are expressed. He carried out his research on yeast cells, apparently simple animals and very far in the scale of development from humans, but in fact it is a process so basic that it is carried out in a similar way in all living things, including humans and also in plants.
Prof. Kornberg has been researching this fundamental field for over 30 years at Stanford University. One of his research students was Prof. Yaheli Lorach, and they got married, and since then they work several months a year at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. By the way, Prof. Kornberg's son, Guy, continues the tradition and does research in the same laboratory, and one of his contributions was even cited in his father's lecture.
"We discovered that there is a great similarity between the process in the yeast cells and the cells of more complex creatures - up to humans. The conclusion is that the transcription process is similar in all living things, and we also discovered a number of components in the process that were not known before," Prof. Kornberg explained the process he discovered and which earned him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In his research, he created a clearly understandable picture of the transcription process, and today we know better how the genes are expressed, and make every living thing what it is.
Knowing the process will allow, for example, the ability to prevent it in bacteria and viruses and will allow the development of antibiotics that will use a completely new strategy. It will also be possible to use the mechanism to influence the direction of the development of stem cells.
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A comment that I tried to post several times on YNet and each time I was censored again, look where a popular site like YNet puts its science section, as far down as possible.... almost at the bottom of the page, in a place where most people (probably) don't reach it at all.... This is the education that YNet gives to their readers, science is not important enough and you can perhaps give it up, there are much more important things such as games, politics in the dime, sports and gossip.... In short, shame and dishonor to the YNet website, in their place I would be very ashamed, or do something to the changes of this dismal situation. The time has come to educate about science and put science in its rightful place.
Minister Bogi Ya'alon should at least justify the empty office that they sewed for him and the salary he receives for nothing