Irwin Rose

Irwin Allan Rose was born July 16, 1926, an American biologist who would spend his career in the molecular shadows where proteins live and die. The breakthrough came with Aaron Ciechanover and Avram Hershko: together they discovered ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation, the elegant cellular mechanism that tags worn-out or misfolded proteins for disposal. The work earned all three the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, recognition that one of biology's most essential quality-control systems had finally been mapped. Rose died June 2, 2015, having shown that destruction, properly ordered, is as vit…