Tel Aviv University establishes Kosower Fellowship Fund

 Left to right - Dr. Esther Galili, Prof. Karen Avraham & Prof. Nechama Kosower (photo credit: TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY)
Left to right - Dr. Esther Galili, Prof. Karen Avraham & Prof. Nechama Kosower
(photo credit: TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY)

Tel Aviv University has established the Kosower Fellowship Fund, which will be dedicated to providing Ph.D. and MD-Ph.D. students at the Faculty of Medicine with optimal conditions to focus on their studies, realize their full potential, and achieve excellence. Each year, a competitive call will be made to select the most outstanding students for this prestigious award.

The creation of the Fund is providing a distinguished means of perpetuating the memory and legacy of Edward Kosower z”l, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of the School of Chemistry at TAU and incumbent of the Josef Kryss Chair in Biophysical Organic Chemistry. Together with Nechama Kosower, MD, Professor Emeritus, and a leading geneticist at the Department of Human Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry at the School of Medicine, they have been instrumental in enabling the University to become one of the world’s leading universities.

The Kosowers have provided a gift of NIS 2,000,000 over seven years to establish and operate the Nechama and Edward Kosower Ph.D. and MD-Ph.D. Fellowship Fund. A Scientific Advisory Committee will choose candidates. The donation also enabled the building of the Kosower Conference Room in the Dean of Medicine’s Suite. The couple’s son, Prof. David Kosower, a particle theorist at Paris-Saclay University (IPhT), was instrumental in helping establish the donation. 

Prof. Nechama Kosower retired in 1996, but this did not stop her from continuing her research; she still has an active lab today. Kosower’s research focused on hereditary drug-induced anemias and the calpain-calpastatin system. Her research was performed with the late Prof. Edward Kosower, and Nechama once said, “A synergistic collaboration with a husband [who is a biophysical and organic chemist] can be fruitful.”