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The Grand Challenges in the Chemical Sciences

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The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities Celebrating the 70 th birthday of the State of Israel conference on THE GRAND CHALLENGES IN THE CHEMICAL SCIENCES Jerusalem, June 3-7 2018 Biographies and Abstracts The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities Celebrating the 70 th birthday of the State of Israel conference on THE GRAND CHALLENGES IN THE CHEMICAL SCIENCES Participants: Jacob Klein Dan Shechtman Dorit Aharonov Roger Kornberg Yaron Silberberg Takuzo Aida Ferenc Krausz Gabor A. Somorjai Yitzhak Apeloig Leeor Kronik Amiel Sternberg Frances Arnold Richard A. Lerner Sir Fraser Stoddart Ruth Arnon Raphael D. Levine Albert Stolow Avinoam Ben-Shaul Rudolph A. Marcus Zehev Tadmor Paul Brumer Todd Martínez Reshef Tenne Wah Chiu Raphael Mechoulam Mark H. Thiemens Nili Cohen David Milstein Naftali Tishby Nir Davidson Shaul Mukamel Knut Wolf Urban Ronnie Ellenblum Edvardas Narevicius Arieh Warshel Greg Engel Nathan Nelson Ira A. Weinstock Makoto Fujita Hagai Netzer Paul Weiss Oleg Gang Abraham Nitzan Shimon Weiss Leticia González Geraldine L. Richmond George M. Whitesides Hardy Gross William Schopf Itamar Willner David Harel Helmut Schwarz Xiaoliang Sunney Xie Jim Heath Mordechai (Moti) Segev Omar M. Yaghi Joshua Jortner Michael Sela Ada Yonath Biographies and Abstracts (Arranged in alphabetic order) The Grand Challenges in the Chemical Sciences Dorit Aharonov The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Quantum Physics through the Computational Lens While the jury is still out as to when and where the impressive experimental progress on quantum gates and qubits will indeed lead one day to a full scale quantum computing machine, a new and not-less exciting development had been taking place over the past decade. Computational notions such as reductions, hardness, and completeness are quickly starting to be integrated into the very heart of the research of many body quantum systems. The computational perspective brings deep new insights into physical questions that seem completely unrelated to computers, including precision measurements and sensing, testing quantum mechanics, condensed matter physics and even black holes and quantum gravity. I will try to explain some of these intriguing connections and implications and time permitting, will ponder about what next. Dorit Aharonov is an Israeli computer scientist from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who has made major contributions to the foundations of qua ntum computation, quantum fault tolerance and quantum Hamiltonian complexity. Growing-up in Haifa, she then moved to Jerusalem and received her BSc in Mathematics and Physics in 1994; after spending one year at the Weizmann institute’s physics department, she continued to complete her PhD at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem under the supervision of Professors Michael Ben-Or and Avi Wigderson. She did one year of Postdoc at the IAS math department in Princeton, then completed another year of postdoc at the computer science department at UC Berkeley; in 2000 she joined the computer science faculty at the Hebrew University. In 2005 Aharonov was profiled by the journal Nature as “one of four young scientists.... making waves in their chosen fields”; In 2006 she received the Krill excellence in research award, and in 2014 she received the Michael Bruno award. Her current main interests are multiparticle entanglement, capturing the difference between quantum and classical physics through the computational lens, applying mathematics to philosophical and foundational physical questions such as testing quantum mechanics, Feldenkrais, Kung-Fu, Mountains, and other beautiful creations. 5 The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities The Grand Challenges in the Chemical Sciences Takuzo Aida silica (1999), bucky gels of ionic liquids (2003), self-assembled conductive Riken Center for Emergent Science; The University of Tokyo nanotubes (2004), aqua materials (2010), and molecular/biomolecular machines (2003, 2015). More recent examples feature responsive materials of structural Semibiological Robotic Nanocarriers Responsive to Endogenous Signals anisotropy (2011) and self-assembly under non-equilibrated conditions including Realization of “surgical nanomachines”, proposed by physicist Richard Feynman, the first chain growth supramolecular polymerization (2015). is undoubtedly one of the ultimate scientific challenges. Such nanomachines are expected to detect particular biological (endogenous) signals and judge necessary tasks to cure wounded tissues. Inspired by this vision, we developed the first robotic nanocarrier that senses ATP (adenosine-5’-triphosphate) and breaks Yitzhak Apeloig up spontaneously to release a guest molecule. This unprecedented nanocarrier Technion - Israel Institute of Technology consists of tubularly assembled GroEL, a barrel-shaped chaperonin protein, ubiquitously present in the human body as an essential biomolecular machine that Yitzhak Apeloig was born in Buchara, Uzbekistan (1944) and assists refolding of denatured proteins by trapping them inside its barrel. For GroEL immigrated to Israel in 1947. He received his B.A. M.Sc. and Ph.D to release refolded proteins from the cavity, it binds ATP, which is then hydrolyzed (1974) degrees in Chemistry (summa cum laude) from the Hebrew to create ADP, wherein GroEL undergoes a large conformational change. We took University in Jerusalem. In 1974-1976 he was a postdoctoral note of this ATP-fueled chemomechanical motion and hypothesized that if the fellow in Princeton University. In 1976 he joined the Technion, mechanical force generated by this motion is large enough to cut non-covalent becoming a full professor in 1988. Currently he holds the Nahum interactions, so that the tubular GroEL assembly may break up spontaneously into Guzik Distinguished University Professor Academic Chair. its monomer upon binding with ATP and release a guest molecule. We demonstrated Yitzhak Apeloig’s research interests are in Organosilicon that this idea works well. We also showed that the GroEL nanotube containing chemistry; Computational quantum chemistry and Physical organic chemistry. superparamagnetic nanoparticles respond to an applied magnetic field. Furthermore, He received many awards, among them: ACS Kipping Award in Silicon Chemistry, the length of the nanotube can be controlled. Wacker Silicone Award, Israel Chemical Society Prize and Gold Medal , Alexander von Humboldt Senior Scientist Award (3 times), JSPS Visiting Professor Award (3 times). Takuzo Aida was born in 1956. He received his Ph.D. in He is an Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Polymer Chemistry from the University of Tokyo in 1984, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2009), holds immediately began his academic career as an assistant professor an Honorary Doctorate from TU Berlin and received the Order of Merit (First at the same university on precision polymer synthesis. In Degree) of Germany. 1996, he was promoted to full professor in the University of During 2001-2009 he was President of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. Tokyo at the Department of Chemistry and Biotechnology. In During these eight years he lead the Technion to higher levels of excellence in 2008, he was appointed as a director for Riken Advanced research and teaching and to increased involvement with the community. He led Science Institute, and then in 2013, as a deputy director for the Technion into new areas of science and technology and raised some $700 million Riken Center for Emergent Matter Science. In 2017, he moved his key role to Riken, dollars from private donors and foundations. During this period he continued to while keeping the group in the University of Tokyo as a professor. His research teach and to lead an active research group. interests cover molecular assembly, soft materials, and bioinspired systems, and he has done many seminal works such as extrusion polymerization using mesoporous 6 7 The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities The Grand Challenges in the Chemical Sciences Frances Arnold Dr. Arnold received her B.S. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton California Institute of Technology University and her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from UC Berkeley. She has been recognized by induction into the US National Academies of Science, Medicine, and Engineering by Evolution: Bringing New Chemistry to Life Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Inventors Not satisfied with nature’s vast catalyst repertoire, we want to create new protein Hall of Fame. Her awards include the Charles Stark Draper Prize of the National Academy catalysts and expand the space of genetically encoded enzyme functions. I will of Engineering (2011), the Millennium Technology Prize (2016), the National Academy describe how we use the most powerful biological design process, evolution, to of Sciences’ Sackler Prize in Convergence Research (2017), and the US National Medal of optimize existing enzymes and invent new ones, thereby circumventing our Technology and Innovation (2013). She has received honorary doctorates from Stockholm profound ignorance of how sequence encodes function. Using chemical intuition University, University of Chicago, Dartmouth University, and the ETH Zurich. and mimicking nature’s evolutionary processes, we can generate whole new enzyme Dr. Arnold chairs the Advisory Panel of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation families that catalyze synthetically important reactions not known in biology.
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