John Mayer obtained his MS and PhD degrees from the University of Birmingham (UK). He is currently serving as Professor of Biochemistry at the School of Biomedical Sciences at Nottingham University. For the past 30 years, he has investigated intracellular proteolysis and particularly the ubiquitin/proteasome system. Presently, he is particularly interested in intracellular proteolysis in relation to neurodegenerative illnesses. Aaron Ciechanover obtained his MD from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (Israel), and his PhD from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, where he is presently serving as Professor of Biochemistry. Professor Ciechanover is known for his discovery of the first ubiquitin system mutant cell, demonstrating the role of the ubiquitin-proteasome proteolytic system in protein degradation in vivo. In 2004, he has received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his ground-breaking work on the ubiquitin-proteasome system. Martin Rechsteiner is Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City (USA). He is interested in the proteasome component of the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway. He has identified several key regulators of proteasome function and is currently working on their structural and functional elucidation.

Brief history of protein degradation and the ubiquitin system (Avram Hershko)
N-terminal ubiquitination: Not such a rare modification anymore (Aaron Ciechanover)
Evolutionary origin of the activation step during ubiquitin dependent protein degration (Hermann Schindelin)
RING fingers and relatives: determination of protein fate (Allan M. Weissman, Kevin L. Lorick, Yien-Che Tsai, Yili Yang)
Ubiquitin conjugation enzymes (Cecile M. Pickart, Michael J. Eddins)
The SCF ubiquitin E3 ligase (Hui Zhang, Leigh A. Higa)
Structural biology of ubiquitin-protein ligases (Ning Zheng, Nikola P. Pavletich)
The deubiquitinating enzymes (Nathaniel S. Russel, Keith Wilkinson)
The 26S proteasome (Martin Rechsteiner)
Molecular machines for protein degradation (Robert Huber, Matthias Bochtler, Michael Groll, Hans Brandstetter, Tim Clausen)
Proteasome regulator, PA700 (19S regulatory particle)(George DeMartino, Cezary Wojcik)
Bioinformatics of ubiquitin domains and their binding partners (Kay Hofmann)
The COP9 signalosome: Its possible role in the ubiquitin system (Wolfgang Dubiel, Dawadschargal Bech-Otschir, Barbara Kapelari).

"2004 erhielten Aaron Ciechanover, Avram Hershko und Irwine Rose den Nobelpreis für Chemie, als Anerkennung Ihrer Arbeiten zum Ubiquitin gesteuerten Proteinabbau. Der israelische Biochemiker Aaron Ciechanover vom Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, hat sein gesammeltes Know-How zum Proteinabbau nun in Form eines mehrbändigen Werkes herausgegeben."
Laborjournal