Irwin Allan Rose - Shutesbury, MA. - Grave of a Famous Person on Waymarking.com

Irwin Allan Rose was born in Brooklyn, NY on July 16, 1926. After serving in the Navy during World War II he attended the University of Chicago where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1948 and Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1952. He was a member of the faculty of the Yale School of Medicine in the department of biochemistry from 1954 to 1963. He joined the Fox Chase Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania in 1963 and remained there until he retired in 1995. He then After retiring, he moved to California, where he took a position as a distinguished professor-in-residence at the University of California in Irvine in the College of Medicine, Department of Physiology and Biophysics.

For his research on the for the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2004. Because of his work we are now able to better understand at the molecular level how and why the cell breaks down certain proteins and not others. This is important in the cell's immune defense mechanism. When this process fails to operate properly it can lead to cervical cancer, cystic fibrosis and other diseases. By understanding ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation scientists can now develop therapeutic interventions against such diseases.