$$News and Reports$$

Dec. 08, 2011
 

Prof. Ashraf Brik, a member of the Department of Chemistry, the Edmond J. Safra Center for the Design and Engineering of Functional Biopolymers, and the National Institute for Biotechnology in the Negev has won the 2011 Israel Chemical Society Prize for Outstanding Young Chemist.

The Outstanding Young Chemist Award is one of the most prestigious prizes given annually by the Israel Chemical Society (ICS) during its annual meeting and is awarded to a researcher under the age of 40. Professor Brik will receive the award for the development of novel chemical methods that allow the synthesis of ubiquitinated peptides and proteins for various structural and functional studies.

Prof. Brik was born in 1973 in Israel. In 1996, he completed his undergraduate studies in Chemistry at BGU. He attended the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology for his M.Sc. and became interested in organic synthesis, working with Dr. Nizar Haddad on the total synthesis of Borrelidin, a natural antibiotic macrolide. After completing his M.Sc. in 1998, he moved to The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) in California where he worked with Professor Ehud Keinan and Professor Philip Dawson on a joint program between the Technion and TSRI. During his Ph.D. (1998-2001), he developed the solid phase chemical ligation method to facilitate the chemical synthesis of proteins and used the developed tools to study the mechanism of the 4-Oxalocrotonate Tautomerase and to alter its activity from tautomerase to decarboxylase.

In 2002, he started a postdoctoral position with Professor Chi-Huey Wong at TSRI, working in the drug discovery area where he developed a high throughput approach named microtiter plate based chemistry and in situ screening for the discovery of potent inhibitors against HIV protease, beta-aryl sulfotransferase, and SARS human corona virus protease. In 2004, he was promoted to a Sr. Research Associate. He was also involved in the glycopeptide and glycoprotein synthesis and developed the sugar-assisted ligation method applying his knowledge and skill in peptide and protein synthesis.

In 2007, Brik returned as a senior lecturer in BGU's Department of Chemistry. His current research mainly focuses on the total chemical synthesis of post-translationally modified proteins for biological studies. His group is also interested in the design and synthesis of peptides and peptidomimetics as anti-infective agents.

He is the recipient of many grants and awards including from the Wolfson Foundation, the Israel Science Foundation, the Edmund Safra Foundation, Marie Curie International Re-Integration Grants, Ma’of Fellowship, and the Human Frontier of Science Program (HFSP). He has also been named in BGU's Dean's Honors List of the Faculty of Natural Sciences as Excellent Researcher.

The prize will be awarded to Prof, Brik at the opening of the 77th Meeting of the Israel Chemical Society to be held on February 7th, 2012.