A look behind the genetic decoder

Nayef Jarrous When growing in the northern Israeli city of Shfaram, he encountered a situation that young people around the world prefer to avoid.

The drawing teacher of primary school class was his father.

And finally, Jarrous has shown to his father that he really was the best student. The 39 years Israel has been named the most outstanding young researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and has been awarded the Yoram Ben-Porath.

Jarrous, who teaches at the Department of Molecular Biology, Faculty of Medicine of the University, has conducted research leading achieving greater understanding primary processing of small RNA molecules involved in the complex system by which genetic information in DNA is converted into protein through RNA. He was corresponding author of an article on this subject in the October issue of Molecular Cell, 2003.

But it all started in Shfaram, a town of 30,000 inhabitants where born into a family Jarrous? Arab Christian.

"After high school, I went to the Hebrew University and Tel Aviv University. I was accepted to both, and chose HU without hesitation. For me, it is more prestigious, and was ready to leave the north and move to Jerusalem my account. "

At the Hebrew University, Jarrous studied general biology, and did his master's thesis in molecular biology under his advisor Dr. Raymond Kaempfer. After Kaempfer continued working in his lab to his PhD.

With Kaempfer, Ph.D. work involved a unique collaboration Jarrous with two other students - Yitzhak Ben Asouli, an Israeli Jew and Farhat Osman, and Muslim Israelis.

"Friends of the most successful and became good friends," said Kaempfer. "Our lab was known as a microcosm of coexistence."

Kaempfer arranged for Jarrous did his post-doctoral training at Yale under the tutelage of Nobel laureate Sidney Altman won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1989 for his work with enzymes. Ghada Jarrous and his wife - who also holds a PhD in Molecular Biology from the Hebrew University and now work in a postdoctoral research - emigrated to the United States in 1996.

"Yale was a different world than it used to. I really liked," says Jarrous. "You are people everywhere, from every corner of the world. He was also a wonderful advisor Professor Altman, and was fortunate to join a science lab that was exceptional."

After three years at American University, Jarrous applied for a position outside the HU and joined the faculty as a lecturer in 2000 at the Department of Molecular Biology.

"Gradually up his own lab and put on their own," says Kaempfer. Jarrous has prospered in his own laboratory, and in his teaching career.

When asked to describe the work performed with RNA, it is easy to understand why a teacher Jarrous success, as is patient even with the most basic questions.

"What we do basically is to study the flow of genetic information from DNA to RNA to protein, focusing on the transition from RNA to protein. We studied specifically the maturation pathways of transfer RNA molecules (called tRNA) in human cells," says Jarrous.

The "tRNA is an adapter that can decipher our genetic code that is messenger RNA into protein. Apply cell biology and biochemistry to watch the processing machinery of tRNA molecules in human cells. No one knows much about the maturation pathways in human cells. Through our pioneering work, we now know much more about the function of the cell and the genetic information?. More specifically, the maturation of molecules that decode our genetic information. "

For those wishing to get to the bottom as to how this research may have applications outside the scientific world, is as succinct Jarrous.

"A genetic disease can affect the DNA and thus affect the flow of genetic information. Knowing the normal situation is crucial to treat the disease with gene therapy. We do pure scientific studies with no connection to any medical research, but we are thinking in that in the future. "

His concession, Ben-Porath Award is given annually by the president of the Hebrew University in honor to the memory of former rector and president of the university, who died with his wife and young son in a car crash near Eilat in 1992.

Jarrous has also won other awards during his relatively short career. Is a recipient of the scholarship of the Foundation and has won Kahanoff research, among others, the Israel Science Foundation, the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation and the Abisch-Frenkel Foundation of Switzerland.

Jarrous says he has had the same opportunities to advance professionally as any Israeli citizen.

"I have never been subjected to any discrimination in my professional career due to being a minority. Never had any doubt in my mind that would end my studies, my PhD, and would go to America and work in Israel. I've never felt that treat me differently. "

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Source: Israel21c.com