For his discovery of a critical protein system that regulates normal cell division and many other biological processes, the California Institute of Technology's Alexander Varshavsky has been named the co-recipient of the 2001 Wolf Foundation Prize in Medicine. Varshavsky, the Smits Professor of Cell Biology at Caltech, will share the award with Avram Hershko of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. The Wolf Prize was established in 1978, and is designed to promote science and art for the benefit of mankind.
Proteins are biology's blue-collar workers.
They are the catalysts that jump-start the various reactions of cellular life, telling cells when it's time to divide, change into other cell types, or die, and monitoring the timing of such events. When its specific job is done, it's often critical that a particular protein should be destroyed and thereby cease functioning. Using both mouse cells and baker's yeast as model organisms, Varshavsky proved that ubiquitin is essential for protein degradation in living cells. His laboratory also showed that the ubiquitin system plays major roles in a number of biological processes, including cell growth and division, DNA repair, and responses to stress. Conversely, malfunctions of the ubiquitin system often allow the cell's mechanisms to run amok.