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News & EventsChemistry Nobel Laureate and Cancer Research Specialist NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. And HAIFA, Israel (August 13, 2007) – In pursuit of global scientific, technological and clinical excellence, Aurora Imaging Technology, Inc., manufacturer of the Aurora® 1.5Tesla Dedicated Breast MRI System, today added yet another world-renowned scientist to its Technology Advisory Board – the 2004 Nobel laureate in chemistry, Professor Aaron Ciechanover. Professor Ciechanover is a Distinguished Research Professor of Biochemistry in the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Research Institute of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel. Professor Ciechanover shared his 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Avram Hershko, his Ph.D. advisor, and Irwin Rose, their collaborator (at that time in the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia) for their discovery of the ubiquitin system for intracellular protein degradation (http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2004/index.html). In 2000, Prof. Ciechanover was awarded the prestigious Albert Lasker Prize for Basic Medical Research. Ciechanover also is a foreign member of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA. “Words absolutely escape me to think that Aurora has the opportunity to tap into one of the world’s finest, if not the finest, cancer specialist and be allowed to follow his leadership in fighting breast cancer,” said Olivia Ho Cheng, president and chief executive officer, Aurora. “Our mission - to eliminate this horrible disease - requires scientists, engineers, clinicians and technicians to work together. With Aurora providing the best possible clinical breast MR images, we hope to aid scientists from a basic scientific pathway in finding the root causes of this disease and thus, enable the development of more effective methods of preventing this disease from occurring. There is no short cut when undertaking such an enormous challenge. I can think of no better individual to lead this battle than Professor Ciechanover.” Ubiquitin modification of numerous cellular targets is involved in regulating a broad array of cellular processes, among them cell cycle and division, apoptosis, transcription, antigen presentation, signal transduction, receptor-mediated endocytosis, maintenance of the cellular quality control, and modulation of diverse metabolic pathways. With the numerous target substrates and processes involved, it has not been surprising to find that aberrations in the ubiquitin system underlie the pathogenesis of many diseases, among them several important malignancies. Professor Ciechanover’s research converted intracellular proteolysis into a major research area in modern biology and biomedicine. His pioneering studies lead to the understanding of the mechanisms of protein ubiquitination and degradation that opened doors and brought forth development of a new generation of highly specific mechanism-based drugs. In the past two-and- a-half decades, tens of thousands of papers were published, following the pioneering work of Ciechanover and his colleagues. Prof. Ciechanover joins a distinguished group of Aurora Advisory Board members previously announced, including:
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