Ada Yonath
Photo: AFP
Aaron Ciechanover
Photo: Technion Spokesperson
Best Jewish brains head to China
Beijing conference on science and technology to host Israeli, Jewish American Nobel laureates
BEIJING – Three Nobel Prize laureates – Ada Yonath, Aaron Ciechanover, and Avram Hershko – are scheduled to take part in a conference in Beijing this month to present Israel's
top achievements in the field of Chemistry.
The three will be joined by two Jewish American laureates, Professor Roger Kornberg, a biochemist, and David Gross, who won a physics Nobel.
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The conference the five are set to attend will focus on nanotechnology and biotechnology.
Due to a US embargo on weapons sales to communist states, Israel is banned from cooperating with China in the field of security. But recently the two states have struck up joint projects in the fields of agriculture, culture, and commodities.
The conference is sponsored by the Israeli Foreign Ministry, in cooperation with the Israeli embassy in China.
"The Chinese people appreciate the Jewish mind and the scientific, academic, and technological accomplishments of Israel," Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, currently touring Beijing and Shanghai, told Yedioth Ahronoth.
"We hope the conference will help improve Israel's image in China and label it, aside from the conflict with the Palestinians, as a scientifically creative and progressive country which should be joined for joint projects."
Ayalon, who was in China for talks on the country's relations with Iran, said cooperation in scientific fields will help overcome security issues in the future.
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