Avram Hershko Talks About Life After Nobel

Tim Yen (left) hosts Novel Laureate Avram Hershko in his lab until Fall 2007.

The science world knows Avram Hershko, MD, PhD, as a Nobel Prize winner. But at Fox Chase Cancer Center, where he conducted the winning research with Irwin "Ernie" Rose, PhD, he is a friend. Since first coming to Fox Chase in 1977 from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, Hershko has spent several sabbaticals here. He thinks of Fox Chase as a second home.

Despite his rise to fame, Hershko is a modest man who still delights in working at the laboratory bench. A series of epochmaking biochemical studies on protein degradation earned the Nobel Prize for him and partners, Aaron Ciechanover, PhD, and Rose. Until Rose retired in 1995, his Fox Chase lab was the site of much of this work in addition to Technion-Israel, where Hershko and Ciechanover are based.

The regulatory protein ubiquitin was the focus of this research. Ubiquitin serves as a cell's internal protein disposal, using an enzyme system to target unwanted proteins for breakdown and recycling once their task within the cell is complete.

"People think I am famous, but I don't feel any different," Hershko says. "I feel very fortunate."

Hershko never imagined he'd receive the highest scientific honor, but Rose had a premonition.

"He said to me, 'You will get the Nobel Prize for this if you live long enough,'" Hershko remembers, fondly.

Life after the Nobel Prize can be challenging. Some past winners try completely new areas of research, but Hershko decided to take on a new challenge, while building on what he knows.

Hershko plans to make progress studying the mitotic checkpoint, a regulatory action cells perform during mitosis (cell division) to ensure each daughter cell has the same number of chromosomes as the parent cell. Inaccuracies in this process lead to chromosome instability, which plays a role in the development of certain cancers.

Working with Fox Chase cell biologist Tim J. Yen, PhD, Hershko will rely on basic research to make new discoveries.

"Basic research will always be important and result in implications [for cancer research]," he says.

Hershko believes Fox Chase's environment is conducive to productivity.

"There is time for being alone to conduct research, but there is also great opportunity to interact with other scientists," he says. "I am very happy to be back."