Irwin Rose, a researcher in the UC Irvine
College of Medicine, has been named a recipient of the 2004 Nobel Prize
in Chemistry.

Rose, 78, shares the prize with Aaron Ciechanover and Avram Hershko of
the Israel Institute of Technology for their discovery of the major
pathway through which cellular building blocks called ubiquitin proteins
are regulated by degradation. Cancer and some neurodegenerative diseases
are thought to be related to disruptions in this pathway.

From the work of Rose, Ciechanover and Hershko, it is now possible to
understand at the molecular level how modification by attachment of
ubiquitin results in breakdown of unwanted proteins inside cells. In
addition, it is now known that other modifiers, similar to ubiquitin,
are used by the cell to regulate proteins in many ways. These findings
are playing a key role in the development of drugs to fight illnesses
such as cancer and cystic fibrosis.

"The basic science faculty at the College of Medicine and our clinical
faculty at UCI Medical Center are delighted and pleased that Dr. Rose
has been recognized for his significant contribution to our
understanding of ubiquitin, and its potential role in the treatment of
disease," said College of Medicine Dean Thomas Cesario.

Rose came to UCI in 1997 from the Fox Chase Cancer Center in
Philadelphia. He is a member of the Department of Physiology and
Biophysics. The Brooklyn-born Rose received his doctorate in
biochemistry in 1952 from the University of Chicago.

Rose, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, currently lives in
Laguna Woods. He is the third UCI researcher to earn this honor. In
1995, Nobel Prizes were awarded to F. Sherwood Rowland in chemistry and
Frederick Reines in physics.

For more information, visit: http://nobelprize.org/

About the University of California, Irvine:
The University of California, Irvine is a top-ranked public university
dedicated to research, scholarship and community service. Founded in
1965, UCI is among the fastest-growing University of California
campuses, with approximately 24,000 undergraduate and graduate students
and about 1,300 faculty members. The third-largest employer in dynamic
Orange County, UCI contributes an annual economic impact of $3 billion.