Yechezkel Barenholz, Ph.D.

Prof. Yechezkel Barenholz is Professor of Biochemistry at the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School. He received his undergraduate, M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees in Biochemistry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he has been a professor since 1982. He is also a Visiting Professor at the University of Virginia. He was a Donders Chair Professor at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands in 1992 and a visiting Professor at Kyoto University, Japan. Prof. Barenholz's interests are in basic and applied science. In basic research, he is involved in many fields related to the biochemistry and biophysics of lipids and membranes, including synthesis, chemical and physical characterization, and the relationship between membrane lipid composition, structure, and function. In applied research, his main interests are in amphiphile-based drug carriers, especially liposomes - from the design of the drug carrier basic aspects through animal studies to clinical trials, as exemplified by the development of DOXIL including a doxorubicin remote-loaded sterically-stabilized liposome for treatment of cancer. At present he is also studying the applications of liposomes for vaccination against infectious diseases and cancer, mechanism of action of antioxidants, anti oxidant therapy and for gene therapy. He is the author of over 230 publications and is on the editorial boards of Chemistry and Physics of Lipids, the Journal of Liposome Research, Cellular & Molecular Biology Letters, and International Journal of Oncology. Professor Barenholz is a recipient of the Kaye Innovation Award and the Alec D. Bangham Achievement Award for life-long achievement resulting in fundamental and sustained impact on the advancement of liposomes science and technology. In 1998, Professor Barenholz became the first incumbent of the Daniel G. Miller Chair in Cancer Research.

Aaron Ciechanover, M.D., Ph.D

Prof. Aaron Ciechanover serves as a Distinguished Professor at the Center for Cancer and Vascular Biology of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Research Institute at the Technion. He holds an M.D. and M.Sc. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, and a D.Sc. in Biology from the Technion (Israel Institute of Technology), Haifa. His post-doctoral training took place at MIT's Department of Biology.
Prof. Ciechanover is one of the discoverers of the critically important ubiquitin-proteasome pathway, through which proteins undergo regulated degradation and recycling in cells. Ubiquitin-mediated degradation of proteins is central to the regulation of basic cellular processes, including the cell cycle, transcriptional activation, growth and development, differentiation, apoptosis, receptor modulation and DNA repair.
For his seminal work in elucidating the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway, Prof. Ciechanover received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2004.

Yaakov Naparstek, M.D.

Prof. Yaakov Naparstek is Chairman of Medicine at Hadassah University Hospital and Professor of Medicine at the Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Medicine. He is a graduate of the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical School in Jerusalem, Israel, and is Board-certified in Internal Medicine, Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology and Allergy. Prof. Naparstek has been a research fellow and a visiting Professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Tuft's University, Boston, the National Institute of Health, Bethesda and Stanford University, Stanford. He serves as the Director of the Hadassah Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology Center.
Prof. Naparstek is the incumbent of the Leifferman Chair in Rheumatology. His main research interests are in the field of autoimmunity, SLE and autoimmune arthritis. In recent years, his research group focused on the identification of the target antigens in SLE and in autoimmune arthritis, and in the attempts to develop antigen-specific therapeutic modalities to those diseases.
Prof. Naparstek is the recipient of national and international awards, and the author of around 100 publications and chapters in books, as well as many patents in the field of autoimmune inflammatory diseases.

Roger D. Kornberg, Ph.D.

Prof. Kornberg is Professor of Structural Biology at Stanford University, California, and has been responsible for a number of fundamental discoveries throughout his years of biochemistry research. In 2006, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, for his studies of the process by which genetic information from DNA is copied to RNA (the molecular basis of eukaryotic transcription). Other awards he has received include the 2006 Horwitz Prize from Columbia University and an honorary doctorate from Umea University, Sweden. Prof. Kornberg holds a bachelor's degree from Harvard University, and a doctorate from Stanford.

Hermona Soreq, Ph.D.

Dean of the Faculty of Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, Prof. Soreq received her Ph.D. at the Weizmann Institute and completed her post-doctoral studies at Rockefeller University, NYC.
Numerous awards and honors mark her achievements, including the Kaye Innovation Prize, Doctor of Philosophy honoris causa in chemistry from the University of Stockholm, the U.S. Army Science Award for Excellence, Chancellor's Distinguished Lectureship from the University of California at Berkley and the Israeli Ministry of Health Prize for Excellence in Biomedical Research. She has served at many international societies, committees and international meetings, as well as on editorial boards of leading scientific journals. Prof. Soreq has published over 200 peer-reviewed research papers in internationally acclaimed journals, book chapters and monographs. She is currently serving as an elected Council Member at the International Society of Neurochemistry (ISN).

Mark L. Tykocinski, M.D.