| The Lev Margulis Memorial Prize 2020 – Life Sciences, Yizhaq Engelberg : |
The decision of the Prize Committee is as follows:
For the 2020 Margulis Prize we have chosen Yizhaq Engelberg for the following reasons:
This year we nominate Yizhaq Engelberg to The Lev Margulis Memorial Prize in the field of microscopy in the Life Sciences for his outstanding achievements in the structural studies of a human antimicrobial peptide.
Yizhaq Engelberg found that the self-assembly of the active core (residues 17-29) of the human antibacterial LL-37 peptide into unique fibrils is essential for its antibacterial activity. He determined the crystal structure of LL-37 (17-29), which revealed a novel protein fibril arrangement forming a stable configuration of densely packed helices. Correspondingly, LL-37 (17-29) formed wide, ribbon-like, thermostable fibrils in solution, which co-localized with bacterial cells, killing them. Based on the structure, Yizhaq designed and conducted a series of mutations which he examined using microbiology, biophysical tools, confocal and electron microscopy, and crystal structures. The results suggest a tunable mechanism of action of LL-3717-29 via the formation of functional fibrils, and offers a prospective to design antimicrobial peptides with controllable activity and improved stability and bioavailability. The award committee was impressed by the wide range of structure-determining biophysical tools mastered and combined by Yizhaq during his work. The presented results are very novel and have just recently been uploaded to the bioRxiv preprint server with Yizhaq being the first and only other author next to his supervisor Meytal Landau.”
| The Lev Margulis Memorial Prize 2021 – Materials Science, Idan Biran: |
The decision of the Prize Committee is as follows:
The Jury committee congratulates the candidates, noting that it was a difficult task to choose the recipient.
The committee chose Idan Biran, Weizmann Institute of Science, on his research topic titled: “Focal series reconstruction for low-dose cryo-TEM images of small organic crystals”.
Idan developed and applied Focal Series Reconstruction (FSR) to examine the structure of organic crystals. These crystals, with applications for electro-optical devices, are sensitive to electron beam damage, and yet difficult to characterize by conventional X-ray diffraction.
Idan developed a hybrid method of FSR and averaging methods used in cryoEM of proteins (single particle methods). Thus, Idan was capable of applying automated methods developed for structural biologists on their cutting edge cryoEM instruments, to examine, at very high spatial resolution (0.16nm), Materials Science specimens that are extremely thin and beam sensitive.”
