Ruth Arnon

PROF. RUTH ARNON, formerly Vice-President of the Weizmann Institute of Science (1988-1997), is a renowned immunologist. Prof. Arnon joined the Institute in 1960. Prior to her appointment as Vice-President, she served as Head of the Department of Chemical Immunology, and as Dean of the Faculty of Biology. From 1985 to 1994, she was the Director of the Institute's MacArthur Center for Molecular Biology of Tropical Diseases. Prof. Arnon has made significant contributions to the fields of vaccine...See more

PROF. RUTH ARNON, formerly Vice-President of the Weizmann Institute of Science (1988-1997), is a renowned immunologist. Prof. Arnon joined the Institute in 1960. Prior to her appointment as Vice-President, she served as Head of the Department of Chemical Immunology, and as Dean of the Faculty of Biology. From 1985 to 1994, she was the Director of the Institute's MacArthur Center for Molecular Biology of Tropical Diseases. Prof. Arnon has made significant contributions to the fields of vaccine development, cancer research and to the study of parasitic diseases. Along with Prof. Michael Sela, she developed Copaxone(R) a drug for the treatment of multiple sclerosis which was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and is presently marketed in the USA, Canada the EU, Australia and many other countries worldwide. Prof. Arnon is a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences, and serves as its President since 2010. On the world scene, she is an elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), and is a member of the American Philosophical Society (APS). She has served as President of the European Federation of Immunological Societies (EFIS), and as Secretary-General of the International Union of Immunological Societies (IUIS), and as a member of the European Union Research Advisory Board (EURAB). She served also as the President of the Association of Academies of Sciences in Asia (AASA). Her awards include the Robert Koch Prize in Medical Sciences, Spain's Jiminez Diaz Memorial Prize, France's Legion of Honor, the Hadassah World Organization's Women of Distinction Award, The AESKU Prize for Life Contribution to Autoimmunity, the Tovi Comet Award, the Wolf Prize for Medicine, the Rothschild Prize for Biology and the Israel Prize for Medicine. She is an Honorary Fellow of Tel-Hai College and the Holon Institute of Technology. She received Honorary Doctorates from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Tel-Aviv University, The Open University of Israel and Leuphana University of Luneburg, Germany. See less