Prof. Ashraf Brik’s Award-Winning Chemistry
Prof. Ashraf Brik’s Award-Winning Chemistry
July 31, 2013
Medical Research, Natural Sciences
Prof. Ashraf Brik, a member of BGU’s Department of Chemistry and its Edmond J. Safra Center for the Design and Engineering of Functional Biopolymers, is the first Arab professor of chemistry in Israel and the first member of his family to pursue higher education.
Last year, Prof. Brik was awarded the prestigious Teva Award for Excellence, presented each year to individuals and organizations that have made extraordinary contributions through their activities in science, art and education.
Prof. Ashraf Brik
“Prof. Brik is a promising young scholar who has quickly established a worldwide reputation in the field of biochemistry,” members of the award committee remarked.
“His laboratory develops novel methods to synthesize homogenous proteins for a variety of structural and functional studies. Prof. Brik’s research is both innovative and groundbreaking, and has become a focus of global interest.”
“His work has the potential to lead to significant new contributions in research,” they added.
This award is just the latest in a series of many won by the outstanding researcher. He was granted prizes from the Wolfson Foundation, the Israel Science Foundation, the Edmund Safra Foundation, Marie Curie International Re-Integration Grants, Ma’of Fellowship, German Israel Foundation (GIF), the United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF), and the Human Frontier of Science Program (HFSP).
Prof. Brik has also been named an Excellent Researcher on BGU’s Dean’s Honors List in the Faculty of Natural Sciences. He is the recipient of the 2011 Israel Chemical Society Prize for Outstanding Young Chemist, the 2012 Toronto Prize, and the 2013 Tetrahedron Young Investigator Award in the area of bio-organic and medicinal chemistry.
Born in Israel in 1973, Prof. Brik completed his undergraduate studies in chemistry at BGU in 1996. After completing his M.Sc. at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in 1998, he went to The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) in California. During his Ph.D. studies, he developed a chemical method to facilitate the synthesis of proteins. In 2002, he took a postdoctoral position at TSRI, working in the field of drug discovery.
Prof. Brik returned to Israel and to BGU in 2007. He was promoted to associate professor in 2011 and rose to the rank of professor in 2012.
This award was founded in memory of Eli Hurvitz who led Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, LTD for 57 years and served as the company’s chief executive officer for over 25 years.
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