UM will confer an honorary doctorate on the Nobel laureate Aaron Ciechanover
The University of Macau (UM) on Wednesday 12 June will confer a Doctor of Science honoris causa degree on Prof Aaron Ciechanover, a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2004, in recognition of his achievements in discovering cell-controlled protein mechanism. After the ceremony, Prof Ciechanover will give a lecture titled ‘The Revolution of Personalized Medicine: Are We Going to Cure all Diseases and at What Cost’.
Prof Ciechanover obtained his PhD degree in biological sciences from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology in 1982. He shared the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Avram Hershko and Irwin Rose, becoming the first Israeli to receive a Nobel Prize in science. Prof Ciechanover’s most remarkable achievement is his discovery of the covalent attachment of ubiquitin to a target protein as a recognition signal for its degradation, and the proposal of a model for ubiquitination modification that provides recognition signals for a specific downstream protease. His research study clearly shows that the ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis plays major roles in numerous cellular processes, and any aberration in the system can contribute to the pathogenetic mechanisms of diseases such as cancer and neurodegenerative disorders. Therefore, the system has become an important platform for drug development, laying the foundation for personalized medicine. During the lecture, Prof Ciechanover will explain the development of ubiquitin-protease system research and its applications in the treatment of human diseases.
The lecture will start at 10:00am in the University Hall (N2), UM. It will be conducted in English. Those who are interested should register at https://isw.um.edu.mo/evm/register/hd-aaron19. For enquiries, please call 8822 4406 or email to fhs@um.edu.mo.