כללי

Joanne Chory

Elliot M. Meyerowitz

Venkatesan Sundaresan

Joanne Chory (born in 1955, USA), a plant geneticist, is the Director of the Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, California, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute
investigator. Recognized as one of the most influential plant biologists of the modern era, Chory studies the genetic codes of plants and uses plants to help fight climate change.
Adaptation is the phenotypic change by which an organism becomes better suited to its environment. This may happen through a combination of genetic adaptation and plasticity. Chory studies the way in which plants respond to environmental changes with an emphasis on changes in composition and light intensity. These allow the plants to distinguish between seasons and produce information about their location relative to the light source and to other plants (as in the case of competition with neighboring plants for photosynthetic light). According to the light conditions, plants will adjust their growth rate, the rate of photosynthesis, and flowering time. While this response is important for the plant’s survival, it may lead to a decrease in yield, for example, if crops grow at a high density.
Chory and her coworkers have determined several molecular pathways that explain how plants adapt to and grow optimally in diverse environments. These days, they use this knowledge to tackle climate change, an urgent threat to the rapidly growing human population. Chory’s studies are important for attaining food security in various environments and when yields are compromised by global climate change.
Chory has made important discoveries on the mechanisms of plant growth, development, and response to the environment. She and her team comprehensively dissected light signaling pathways through a combination of molecular genetics, biochemistry, ‘omics techniques, and elegant cell biology. They discovered a negative growth regulation, acting in the absence of light, which controls leaf and chloroplast development and photo-regulated gene expression in dicotyledonous plants. The identification of specific repressor proteins that were antagonized by the absorption of light by photoreceptors was a seminal discovery. This revolutionized photomorphogenesis and light signaling fields.

More broadly, this finding translates into the hugely agronomically important trait of shade avoidance, which is thought to be the major trait underpinning increased maize yields. In addition, follow-up studies in several laboratories found that these genes also play an important role in human cells.
The team uncovered the signaling pathway for brassinosteroids. Chory and her coworkers have also made major contributions to understanding auxin and cytokinin biosynthesis and function, nuclear/chloroplast interactions and retrograde signaling, circadian (biological clock) regulation of growth, and natural variation of adaptation.
Chorey’s latest research deals with inducing plants to increase the accumulation of carbon dioxide in their roots. Despite efforts to reduce carbon emissions to avoid extreme climate change and curb global warming, the solution may come from the other direction, namely by lowering carbon dioxide levels from the air and storing it for the long term. In light of the fact that plants already know how to utilize carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, Chorey’s lab is studying how to engineer plants so that they manage to accumulate more carbon dioxide in their roots. Such plants, if planted on a large scale, could remove enough carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and may lead to a solution to this critical effect of climate change.
Joanne Chory is awarded the Wolf Prize for her contributions to plant developmental biology that have paved the way for current novel work and for major advances in understanding processes key for crop improvement: light signaling, hormone signaling, shade avoidance, flowering time, growth regulation, and disease resistance.

Jeffery W. Kelly

Chuan He

Hiroaki Suga

“for pioneering discoveries that illuminate the functions and pathological dysfunctions of RNA and proteins and for creating strategies to harness the capabilities of these biopolymers in new ways to ameliorate human diseases”.

Prof. Jeffery W. Kelly is the Lita Annenberg Hazen Professor of Chemistry at The Scripps Research Institute. Kelly received his BS in chemistry from the State University of New York at Fredonia, his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1986), and performed postdoctoral research in bio-organic chemistry at Rockefeller University (1989).

Most protein molecules must fold into defined three-dimensional structures to acquire their functional activity. However, some proteins can adopt several folding states, and their biologically active state may be only marginally stable. Misfolded proteins can form toxic aggregates, such as soluble oligomers and fibrillar amyloid deposits, which may lead to neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s disease and many other pathologies. All cells contain an extensive protein homeostasis network of protein folding devices, such as molecular chaperones and other factors that prevent or regulate protein aggregation. These defense networks tend to decline during aging, facilitating the manifestation of aggregate deposition diseases.

Prof. Kelly’s research focuses on understanding protein folding, misfolding, and aggregation and using chemical and biological approaches to develop novel therapeutic strategies to combat diseases caused by protein misfolding and aggregation. He contributed significantly to the fight against neurodegenerative diseases by discovering the mechanism of protein aggregation in amyloid diseases that affect the heart and nervous system. He showed the mechanism by which a protein, transthyretin, unravels and agglomerates into clusters that kill cells, tissues, and ultimately patients and developed a molecular approach to stabilize this protein.
Kelly successfully synthesized the first regulatory-agency-approved drug, “tafamidis vyndaqel”. This pioneering drug, marketed worldwide, significantly slows the progression of Familial Amyloid Polyneuropathy, a neurodegenerative disease, and Familial and Sporadic TTR Cardiomyopathy disease, which causes heart failure.

Jeffery W. Kelly is awarded the Wolf prize for developing a new and clinically impactful strategy to ameliorate disease caused by pathological protein aggregation. His seminal contributions revealed fundamental features of protein homeostasis (proteostasis) at the molecular level, including the interplay among protein folding, misfolding, and aggregation. Dysregulation of proteostasis is associated with a spectrum of human diseases. Kelly’s laboratory used these fundamental insights to develop the drug “tafamidis”, which halts or slows disease progression in patients suffering from transthyretin amyloidosis. This approach may be applicable to other proteostasis-based disorders.

Hiroaki Suga

Jeffery W. Kelly

Chuan He

“for pioneering discoveries that illuminate the functions and pathological dysfunctions of RNA and proteins and for creating strategies to harness the capabilities of these biopolymers in new ways to ameliorate human diseases.”

Prof. Suga received his Bachelor of Engineering (1986) and Master of Engineering (1989) from Okayama University, Ph.D. in Chemistry (1994) from MIT, and was a post-doctoral fellow at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Suga began his independent career at New York State University at Buffalo (1997-2003). In 2003 he moved to the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology at the  University of Tokyo. Since 2010 Suga has been a full Professor in the department of chemistry at the University of Tokyo. Currently, he serves as the President of the Chemical Society of Japan.

Prof. Suga’s research interests include bioorganic chemistry, chemical biology, and biotechnology related to RNA, translation, and peptides. As a young researcher, he made significant advances in using RNA-based enzymes, or ribozymes, to incorporate unnatural amino acids into tRNA. This technology, known as the “Flexizyme,” greatly expanded the potential for reprogramming the genetic code. Through additional research on in vitro translation of proteins using reconstituted ribosomes, Prof. Suga could incorporate various unnatural amino acids into expressed peptides to spontaneously produce molecules that form macrocyclic peptides. Prof. Suga used oligonucleotide display and directed evolution to create the RaPID system, a platform for producing and selecting billions of macrocyclic peptides as high-affinity binders to protein targets, including many that had previously been considered undruggable.

In 2006, Prof. Suga co-founded PeptiDream to advance and apply the RaPID system, which quickly became a widely used technology for finding small molecule protein binders, particularly disrupting protein-protein interactions. His discoveries have enabled the construction of complex molecules on a large scale, not possible using conventional methods alone. Suga’s work has produced more unique non-natural molecules than other approachs, which possess the unique stereochemistry, rich functional group density, and 3D-architecture necessary for interrogating and controlling biological processes. This paved the way for a new generation of drugs. PeptiDream became a publicly traded company on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and is one of Japan’s most successful startup companies.

Hiroaki Suga is awarded the Wolf prize for developing an exceptionally innovative in-vitro selection system for cyclic peptides as inhibitors of protein-protein interactions. He invented an RNA-based catalyst, flexizyme, that transcends natural mechanisms and vastly expands the range of amino acids that can be incorporated with ribosomal machinery. Suga’s strategy enables rapid construction and screening of enormous cyclic peptide libraries. His unique discovery has established a new approach to medicinal chemistry and generated new tools for drug discovery.

Sir Richard Julian Long

Fujiko Nakaya

Sir Richard Julian Long is an English sculptor and one of the best-known British land artists. He lives and works in Bristol, the city in which he was born. Long studied at the West of England College of Art (1962-1965) and continued his studies at the St. Martin’s School of Art and Design, London (1966-1968). Considered one of the most influential artists, Richard Long’s works have extended the possibilities of sculpture beyond traditional materials and methods. Long’s works engage with the landscape, investigating nature and his experience within nature. His work is typically displayed with materials or through documentary photographs of his performances and experiences.

When Richard Long was 18, he walked on the downs near his native Bristol. He began rolling a snowball through the snow, and when it became too big to push further, he took out his camera – then, instead of snapshotting the giant snowball, he photographed the dark meandering track it had left in the snow. This image, one of his earliest works of land art, was named “Snowball Track”. He was then a student at the West of England College of Art in Bristol, but he was dismissed from the course because his work was considered too provocative and perhaps ahead of its time.

Walking is central to Long’s work as a way of perceiving and recording landscape; early in his career, he established the precedent that art could be a journey and that a sculpture could be deconstructed over the distance of a journey. Walking as a medium has enabled him to articulate ideas about time and space. He seeks freedom of movement and expression and a balance with the natural world through a physical and personal engagement with the land, working with nature to reflect its impermanence and the changing processes of time. His beguilingly simple works commonly take the form of geometric shapes-circles, lines, ellipses, and spirals and use raw materials,
such as stones and driftwood, found along the way. These works are often simple interventions, marks of passage, and leave little or no trace, and are documented through photographs or text works that record his ideas, observations, and experiences.

Richard Long is awarded the Wolf Prize for being a pioneer of conceptual art centered on personal interaction with the natural world. In 1967, his work A Line Made by Walking introduced a contemporary reimagining of human experience in nature as a subject for art. Over the course of nearly six decades, his solitary walks throughout the world have generated a complex body of work comprising sculptures, photographs, drawings, and texts. The materials for these artworks, echoing the walks themselves, are nature-based: rocks and stones, logs and twigs, mud and soil. The tools of time-marking and map-making, place-naming and record-keeping all figure together to create works that commingle factual observation and artistic invention. Long’s deep engagement with the natural environment as process, subject, material, and vocabulary has established him as a key figure of his generation and one whose work resonates powerfully with present-day concerns.

Yoshiharu Tsukamoto

Momoyo Kaijima  

Elizabeth Diller

At a time of considerable world change, when social and cultural values have been questioned, these three are outstanding in challenging norms to advance the field of architecture and its wider influence. Whilst very different in their production, they share a common vital quality of bringing research, pedagogy and practice into critical confluence for the advancement of their field. In doing so, they reveal the degree to which art, science, and engagement with society, require values that can be interrogated and challenged, as a central part of their contribution. Conscious of the wider affects of architecture, each recipient embodies the idea of collaboration in varied ways, embracing geographic, cultural and methodological differences to be celebrated: excellence through diversity. With their radical architectural visions, they continue to be meaningful influencers of future architectural generations. They have developed the agency of architecture through an expanded field, in engaging politics, the city as the base for social action, and the imperative of reaching broader audiences.

Yoshiharu Tsukamoto was born in the Kanagawa Prefecture and received his Ph.D. in Engineering from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, where he is currently a professor.

Tsukamoto and Kaijima fostered their partnership after joining forces in competitions where they achieved many successes—so much so—that they decided to found Atelier Bow-Wow in which they continue to thrive.

The prolific work of this Japanese architectural team spans over three decades. They begin each architectural project with observation: the site, those who will eventually inhabit the building, the behavior of the people in the surroundings, shared spaces, resources, and climate. With all this in mind, they will then try to push “that which exists” a bit further to create a new phenomenon.

Since 1992 when Tsukamoto and Kaijima founded their practice, they have consistently shown themselves to be exceptional practitioners, bridging the relationship between research and practice, proposing alternative ways of making architecture focused on its social affects. With the publication of ‘Made In Tokyo’ (2001) the pioneering “Behaviorology” (2010) and ‘Architectural Ethnography’ (2018), they have developed a treatise on how to translate the liminal and in-between spaces of the city into opportunities for public engagement. With a practice that is predominantly residential and adeptly made, their work on behavior gives dominance to design strategies that work bottom-up, looking at human rituals as the basis for design opportunities. This was further tested in their post 2011 tsunami project reconstructing Momonoura village. They have profoundly influenced younger generations alternative human-centered approaches to the urban environment.

Momoyo Kaijima  

Yoshiharu Tsukamoto

Elizabeth Diller

At a time of considerable world change, when social and cultural values have been questioned, these three are outstanding in challenging norms to advance the field of architecture and its wider influence. Whilst very different in their production, they share a common vital quality of bringing research, pedagogy and practice into critical confluence for the advancement of their field. In doing so, they reveal the degree to which art, science, and engagement with society, require values that can be interrogated and challenged, as a central part of their contribution. Conscious of the wider affects of architecture, each recipient embodies the idea of collaboration in varied ways, embracing geographic, cultural and methodological differences to be celebrated: excellence through diversity. With their radical architectural visions, they continue to be meaningful influencers of future architectural generations. They have developed the agency of architecture through an expanded field, in engaging politics, the city as the base for social action, and the imperative of reaching broader audiences.

Momoyo Kaijima is Tokyo-born and completed her Architecture degree at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, at which she later received her doctorate, as well. Today Kaijima is a Prof. of Architectural Behaviorology at ETH Zurich.

Kaijima and Tsukamoto fostered their partnership after joining forces in competitions where they achieved many successes—so much so—that they decided to found Atelier Bow-Wow in which they continue to thrive.

The prolific work of this Japanese architectural team spans over three decades. They begin each architectural project with observation: the site, those who will eventually inhabit the building, the behavior of the people in the surroundings, shared spaces, resources, and climate. With all this in mind, they will then try to push “that which exists” a bit further to create a new phenomenon.

Since 1992 when Tsukamoto and Kaijima founded their practice, they have consistently shown themselves to be exceptional practitioners, bridging the relationship between research and practice, proposing alternative ways of making architecture focused on its social affects. With the publication of “Made In Tokyo” (2001) the pioneering “Behaviorology” (2010) and “Architectural Ethnography” (2018), they have developed a treatise on how to translate the liminal and in-between spaces of the city into opportunities for public engagement. With a practice that is predominantly residential and adeptly made, their work on behavior gives dominance to design strategies that work bottom-up, looking at human rituals as the basis for design opportunities. This was further tested in their post 2011 tsunami project reconstructing Momonoura village. They have profoundly influenced younger generations alternative human-centered approaches to the urban environment.