Dr Ze'ev A Ronai obtained his PhD degree in 1985 from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and performed postdoctoral research at the Columbia University Cancer Center in New York (1985–1988). He established the Molecular Carcinogenesis Program at the American Health Foundation in Valhalla, New York, USA (1989–1997), and in 1997 moved to the Ruttenberg Cancer Center at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, where he is currently a professor. Dr Ronai established the sensitive enriched-PCR, which enables detection of mutant ras genes in colonic washings and sputum of patients at risk for colorectal or lung cancer, respectively. Included in his work on regulation and function of the mammalian stress response are the identification of the UV-response element in polyoma virus and the role of its bound proteins in the cellular response to UV-irradiation; the discovery of the role of stress-activated kinase JNK in targeting the ubiquitination and degradation of its associted proteins; the identification of GSTp as a redox sensor of stress kinases; and the identification and characterization of ATF2 as regulator of melanoma sensitivity to irradiation.

figure 1

Figure 1