Raphael Mechoulam

the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Title: Endogenous anandamide-like compounds

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Biography

RM was born in Sofia, Bulgaria in 1930. His father was a physician and head of the Jewish hospital in Sofia.  RM went to an American Grade School in Sofia for 4 years until it was closed by the pro-German government.

From 1942, for over 2 years – during the 2nd world war - his family lived in small villages in the Balkans. His parents believed that the family is safer there. Nevertheless his father was taken to a concentration camp for part of this time.

RM immigrated to Israel in 1949. He studied biochemistry at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (M.Sc.) and the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot (Ph.D.) He spent a year in New York, at the Rockefeller Institute and returned to the Weizmann Institute in 1960. He worked on the chemistry of various natural products. He initiated his work on hashish, which he received from the Police. In 1966 he moved to the Hebrew University, where he became a full professor in 1972. From 1979 to 1982 he was Rector (Academic Head) of the Hebrew University. He retired in 2000 but continued his research. He still has a lab with 3-4 post-doctoral researchers.

His work has been mostly on the chemistry of natural products, the best known being on cannabinoids. In collaboration with numerous colleagues in Israel and abroad he has also published in pharmacology and on clinical trials.

He has published about 470 scientific papers and has received numerous national and international prizes, including the Israel Prize – the most prestigious Israeli Prize – as well as a prize from the US National Institutes of Health. He is a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences, where he headed the Natural Sciences section from 2007 to 2013. 

Research Interest

Over the last few decades research on the cannabinoids has gone through several distinct phases: 1) research on the plant cannabinoids, mostly on tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD); 2) research on the endogenous cannabinoids, mostly on anandamide and 2-arachidonoyl glycerol (2-AG); and 3) research on anandamide-like endogenous fatty acid amides with amino acids and ethanol amines.

Thousands of publications have been published on the plant cannabinoids and some of them are already in use as therapeutic drugs. Of particular interest is the non-psychotropic cannabinoid, CBD; it is an approved anti-epileptic drug and is being evaluated in many other therapeutic areas (for example, inflammation, cancer, bone fractures and auto-immune diseases). Similarly, cannabidiolic acid methyl ester, a stable synthetic derivative of cannabidiolic acid (CBDA), a major constituent of Cannabis sativa, proved to be effective in suppressing nausea and anxiety in rats and reducing depression-like behavior in animal models of depression.

Endogenous fatty acid – amino acid amides have been shown to be of major importance in a large spectrum of biological functions and diseases. Thus, oleoyl serine, is an anti-osteoporotic molecule, anandamide and arachidonoyl serine possess antimicrobial activity against methicillin resistant S. aureus strains, arachidonoyl serine exerts neuroprotective effects following traumatic brain injury and oleoyl glycine prevents both nicotine conditioned place preference – an addiction animal model - and nicotine withdrawal-associated behaviors in mice and thus may possess efficacy in treating nicotine addiction.

We can expect therapeutic advances in all areas.