Nathan Sharon ( he, נתן שרון; November 1925
23/24 November 2005, accessed 21 June 2011 – 17 June 2011 "Prof. Nathan Sharon dec'd"
''Avalim'' Notices (in Hebrew), 19 June 2011) was an Israeli biochemist.

Biography

Sharon was born in 1925 in Brest-Litovsk, then in

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

(now Brest,

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...

). He

emigrated Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...

Mandate Palestine Mandatory Palestine ( ar, فلسطين الانتدابية '; he, פָּלֶשְׂתִּינָה (א״י) ', where "E.Y." indicates ''’Eretz Yiśrā’ēl'', the Land of Israel) was a geopolitical entity established between 1920 and 1948 i ...

with his family in 1934 and settled in

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the ...

.CV of Nathan Sharon (in Hebrew)
Palmach web site Concurrent with his high school studies, Sharon joined the Gadna military youth program in 1941, and following his graduation from school, in 1943, he joined the Palmach, serving until 1945. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Sharon served in the Science Corps of the Israel Defense Forces, attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel, and worked on the development of gas flame throwers. Sharon studied chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1950, he graduated and, in 1953, he was awarded a doctorate. In 1954, he joined the faculty of the Department for Biophysics at the

Weizmann Institute of Science The Weizmann Institute of Science ( he, מכון ויצמן למדע ''Machon Vaitzman LeMada'') is a public research university in Rehovot, Israel, established in 1934, 14 years before the State of Israel. It differs from other Israeli unive ...

, headed by professor

Ephraim Katzir Ephraim Katzir ( he, אפרים קציר, translit=Efrayim Katsir; – 30 May 2009) was an Israeli biophysicist and Labor Party politician. He was the fourth President of Israel from 1973 until 1978. Biography Efraim Katchalski (later Katzir ...

, where he became a professor in 1968. In 1974, he was appointed head of the department, a position he held intermittently until his retirement in 1990. He also served as dean of the Faculty of Chemistry and Physics and was a visiting professor at Harvard,

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

universities and the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. He was also a member of the senate of the

Open University of Israel The Open University of Israel ( he, האוניברסיטה הפתוחה, ''Ha-Universita ha-Ptuha'') is a distance-education university in Israel. It is one of ten public universities in Israel recognized by the Council of Higher Education (C ...

and a member of the counsel of the Tel Aviv-Yafo Academic College. He served as editor of "World of Science" broadcast on Israel Radio, editor of the journal "''Mada''" (Science) and science and technology editor of the '' Haaretz'' newspaper. He was a leading figure in the research of

carbohydrate In organic chemistry, a carbohydrate () is a biomolecule consisting of carbon (C), hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O) atoms, usually with a hydrogen–oxygen atom ratio of 2:1 (as in water) and thus with the empirical formula (where ''m'' may or m ...

and glycoprotein for more than fifty years. He authored several seminal works on

lectins Lectins are carbohydrate-binding proteins that are highly specific for sugar groups that are part of other molecules, so cause agglutination of particular cells or precipitation of glycoconjugates and polysaccharides. Lectins have a role in rec ...

and

glycoconjugates Glycoconjugates are the classification family for carbohydrates – referred to as glycans – which are covalently linked with chemical species such as proteins, peptides, lipids, and other compounds. Glycoconjugates are formed in processes term ...

, including the discovery of lectins, their interactions with carbohydrates, and their subsequent use in laboratory research and diagnostics. In 1992, he was elected to the

Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, based in Jerusalem, was established in 1961 by the State of Israel to foster contact between Israeli scholars in the sciences and humanities and create a think tank for advising the government on re ...

. He died on 17 June 2011 at the age of 85.

Honours and awards

Sharon received numerous honorary degrees and awards including: *In 1987, he was awarded the Weizmann Prize for Sciences. *In 1987, he received an honorary doctorate from the

University of Paris , image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of Arms , latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis , motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin) , mottoeng = Here and a ...

. *In 1989, he received the Bijvoet Medal of the

Bijvoet Center for Biomolecular Research The Bijvoet Centre for Biomolecular Research is a research institute at Utrecht University. The Bijvoet Centre performs research on the relation between the structure and function of biomolecules, including proteins and lipids, which play a role ...

, Utrecht University, NL *In 1994, he was awarded the Israel Prize in biochemistry.

Family

Sharon married Rachel (Itzikson) in 1948 and has two daughters, Esther (Esty) Sharon, and Osnat Bairey. He was the nephew of

Pinchas Sapir Pinchas Sapir ( he, פנחס ספיר, born Pinchas Kozlowski 15 October 1906 – 12 August 1975) was an Israeli politician during the first three decades following the country's founding. He held two important ministerial posts, Minister of Fi ...

, the former

Israeli Finance Minister The Israeli Ministry of Finance ( he, מִשְׂרַד הָאוֹצָר, ''Misrad HaOtzar'') is the main economic ministry of the Government of Israel. It is responsible for planning and implementing the Government's overall economic policy, as we ...

and the brother of Shmuel Shtrikman, who was awarded the 2001 Israel Prize for physics.

Selected works

Sharon published over 400 papers in international scientific journals and wrote or edited eight books in English and Hebrew. His published works include: * ''Lectins'', co-authored with Halina Lis (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003 (2nd edition)).

References

External links