Prof. Israel Hanukoglu of Ariel University and his brother, TAU Prof. Aaron Hanukoglu, wrote for Wikipedia on sodium channels being responsible for regulating blood volume and blood pressure.
By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICHUpdated: MARCH 31, 2016 09:01Vacutainer blood bottles(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
An article by two Israeli scientists invited by the editor of the Gene-Wiki project Prof. Andrew Su has been enthusiastically received around the world, breaking the peaks of exposure in the scientific journal Gene.The Gene-Wiki project is sponsored by the prestigious US National Institutes of Health (NIH). This project requires updating of the related Wikipedia entries by the authors of the article that is peer reviewed and published in the scientific journal Gene.Prof. Israel Hanukoglu of Ariel University and his brother, Tel Aviv University Prof. Aaron Hanukoglu, wrote for Wikipedia on sodium channels responsible for regulating blood volume and blood pressure in the body. Despite the concern of Wikipedia entries’ reliability and quality – and articles not being added to a scientist’s list of scientific and medical journal publications – the NIH took a decision to support the project to write and update the site’s pages for each gene in the human genome by experts.The Human Genome Project deciphered the structure of 20,000 genes – information that is now making it possible to identify and treat a variety of diseases resulting from hereditary defects in patients’ genomes.Israel Hanukoglu, a molecular biologist, was recently named editor of the journal Gene. His brother Aharon is head of the pediatric endocrinology unit at Wolfson Medical Center in Holon and on the faculty of TAU’s Sackler Medical Faculty. Following the success of the article, the biologist was invited to join a team of six editors who will manage the new venture supported by the NIH and Elsevier Publishing International. Now Israel will be judging articles.Israel is head of Ariel University’s cell biology lab. Earlier in his career, he cloned and determined the structure of more than 10 genes, including the one responsible for the protein keratin that makes up hair, enzymes involved in creating steroid hormones and more.He came to Ariel in 1994 and also served between 1996 and 1999 as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s science adviser.