Yehudith Birk

Yehudith Birk ( Hebrew יהודית בירק; born Gershtanski ; born September 30, 1926 in Grajewo ; died January 14, 2013 ) was an Israeli biochemist .

Life

Yehudith Gershtanski was born on September 30, 1926 in the Polish city ​​of Grajewo as the only child of a businessman and an accountant.

The family emigrated to the British League of Nations Mandate Palestine in 1935 and lived in Tel Aviv . After a year-long stay in the Alonim tower and palisade settlement founded by the kibbutz movement , Yehudith began studying biology and chemistry with a focus on biochemistry and microbiology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1945 , which she received in December 1950 with a Master of Science degree ( M.Sc.). In 1948/49 she interrupted her studies and served in the scientific corps of the Israel Defense Forces during the Israeli War of Independence . After completing her doctoral studies, with Aharon Bondi as supervisor, at the Agricultural Faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which has its headquarters in Rechovot , she obtained a Ph.D. in 1954.

During a research stay in 1955/56 at Rutgers University in the US state of New Jersey, she worked in the laboratory of Nobel Prize winner Selman Abraham Waksman . In the United States, she turned down several offers and returned to the Agricultural Faculty of the Hebrew University. There she taught from 1962 as Senior Lecturer , from 1966 as Associate Professor and from 1970 as Full Professor . From 1977 to 1980 she headed this faculty as dean . From 1990 to 1995 Birk was Vice Rector of the Hebrew University. She taught at several universities in the USA and at Lincoln University (New Zealand) in 1995 as a visiting professor .

She was married to the physicist Meir Birk (1924–2000). Her two sons were born in 1953 and 1957. The family lived in Rechovot. She had been friends with her future husband at the age of nine.

plant

One research focus of Birk were the proteins of the soybean . She found a soybean protease inhibitor with 78 amino acids, which became known as Bowman-Birk inhibitor (BBI). Her work found application not only in the field of agriculture, but also in the development of cancer drugs.

Awards

• 1978: Rothschild Prize
• 1993: Appointed member of the Israel Academy of Sciences
• 1998: Israel Prize for her achievements in the field of agriculture
• 2004: Elected member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts
• The Bowman-Birk inhibitor was named after Donald Bowman and Yehudith Birk.
• In Rechovot, a street was named after Yehudith Birk.

Works (overview)

• Plant Protease Inhibitors , Springer-Verlag Berlin 2003, ISBN 978-3-540-00118-8
• Purification and some properties of a highly active inhibitor of trypsin and α-chymotryotrypsin from soybeans . In: Biochimica et Biophysica Acta . 54, 1961, pp. 378-381.
• The database of the National Center for Biotechnology Information contains 93 specialist publications with the participation of Yehudith Birk.
• The researcher network Researchgate lists 159 specialist publications with their participation.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k} Nurit Kirsh: Yehudith Birk. In: jwa.org. Retrieved November 28, 2018 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Ettay Nevo: The Woman Who Unraveled the Mysteries of Soy. In: Davidson Institute. April 16, 2018. Retrieved November 28, 2018 . 
3. ↑ Prof. Yehudit Birk. In: hafakulta.agri.huji.ac.il. Retrieved November 26, 2018 . 
4. ^ Bowman-Birk inhibitor. In: Lexicon of Biology. www.spektrum.de, accessed on November 28, 2018 . 
5. ^ ^{A b} Ann R. Kennedy: The Health Benefits of the Bowman-Birk Inhibitor. In: Evandro Fei Fang, Tzi Bun Ng (Ed.): Antitumor Potential and Other Emerging Medicinal Properties of Natural Compounds . Springer Science + Business Media, Dordrecht 2013, ISBN 978-94-007-6213-8 , pp. 183–186 ( preview online)
6. ↑ Selected items. In: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Retrieved November 28, 2018 . 
7. ↑ Yehudith Birk. In: www.researchgate.net. Retrieved November 28, 2018 .