Professor Emeritus Moussa Youdim from the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology will be awarded the 2022 Israel Prize for Life Sciences, the Prize Committee noted earlier this month.
The prize goes to Prof. Youdim "for his pioneering, groundbreaking scientific achievements in the field of neuropharmacology. He has placed generations of undergraduates and graduates, many of whom hold key positions, in Israeli academia and in the biotechnology industry. His publications have received wide international acclaim and have won him many awards."
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Technion President Professor Uri Sivan issued the following statement: "It is my honor to congratulate Professor Moussa Youdim on being awarded the Israel Prize for Life Sciences in recognition of his transformative contributions to science and medicine. The applicative and far-reaching nature of his achievements make him a member of an elite group of scientists privileged to see their research applied to benefit humankind. Prof. Youdim's brilliant work has brought about a dramatic change in the understanding of neurodegenerative diseases and literally transformed the quality of life of Parkinson's patients the world over."
Prof. Youdim was born in Tehran, Iran to a family with 5 children.
At the age of 12, Youdim was sent to England. He has never returned to Iran. In England, he was educated at a Jewish boarding school in Brighton ,and in 1959 was accepted to study medicine at McGill University Medical School in Canada.
In 1972, he first heard about selegiline, a drug developed by Hungarian Holocaust survivor Joseph Knoll, whom he later visited in Budapest to collect a sample and in 1977, he immigrated to Israel with the decision to continue his selegiline research here.
In the Technion's Faculty of Medicine, Prof. Youdim and his colleague Professor John Finberg began developing the Parkinson's drug together with Teva. By 1981, they knew they had an effective drug to treat Parkinson's, but it wasn't until 2006 that the drug Azilect® (Rasagiline) was approved by the FDA for treating Parkinson's patients.
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