Ashraf Brik

The research efforts of Brik's group are budgeted by many foundations, including the European Commission's Horizon 2020 Program, which recently awarded him the ERC Advanced Grant.

In 2007 Brik joined the Department of Chemistry of Ben Gurion University of the Negev. In 2011 he was promoted to associate professor and in 2012 to full professor. In 2014, Brik moved to the Technion Institute of Technology, where he holds the Jordan and Irene Tark Chair. Brik has coauthored more than 120 publications in key periodicals: Science, Nature Chemistry, Nature Chemical Biology, Nature Protocols, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Angewandte Chemie, Chemical Society Reviews, Chemical Science and others. Brik is a member of advisory and editing boards of a number of periodicals, including Cell Chemical Biology, ChemBioChem and Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry. He has also registered 6 patents.

Brik, one of ten children, was born and raised in Abu Snan in northern Israel. He received a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, a master's degree in chemistry from the Technion. He studied for his doctoral degree, in which he focused on research of chemical synthesis of proteins, from a joint course of the Technion and the Scripps Research Institute under the mentorship of Professor Chi-Huey Wong. Brik authored the thesis “Design and Synthesis of Novel Catalytic Proteins Based on Polypeptide Scaffolds”, under the supervision of professor Ehud Keinan (Technion) and professor Phillip Dawson (The Scripps Research Institute). He was promoted to senior researcher in 2004. He developed the synthesis of glycoproteins. In addition, Brik was involved in projects related to the discovery of inhibitors of various enzymes such as HIV protease.

Ashraf Brik (Hebrew: אשרף בריק, Arabic: أشرف بريق; born June 29, 1973) is a full professor at the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry at the Technion Institute of Technology, Israel. His laboratory specializes in developing synthetic methods for chemical synthesis of proteins with post-translational modifications (PTMs) in quantities that allow for them to be studied thoroughly. Brik's group is developing novel modulators based on small molecules, peptides and peptidomimetics, to influence enzymes (such as deubiquitinases) and proteins involved in various diseases. With the help of these tools, it is possible to understand how molecules and biological systems affect health.