The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2004‘Ubiquitous’ quality control of life

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2004 is shared by Aaron Ciechanover, Avram Hershko and Irwin Rose, who made fundamental discoveries concerning how cells regulate the breakdown of cellular proteins with extreme specificity. The three biochemists discovered ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis, a process where an enzyme system tags unwanted proteins with many molecules of a small protein called ubiquitin and then sends then to the proteasome where they are broken down.