Irwin A. Rose (born 16 July 1926 in NY) is an American biologist. Along with Aaron Ciechanover and Avram Hershko, he was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation.
Rose attended Washington State University for one year prior to serving in the Navy during WWII. Upon returning from the war he received his B.S. in 1948 and his Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1952, both from the University of Chicago. He is currently a distinguished professor-in-residence at the Department of Physiology and Biophysics of the College of Medicine at the University of California, Irvine.
Irwin (Ernie) trained several postdoctoral fellows while at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, where the groundbreaking Ub work was done. These included Art Haas, the first to see Ubiquitin chains, Keith Wilkinson, the one to first identify APF-1 as Ubiquitin, and Cecile Pickart, a world class enzymologist in many parts of the Ub system.
Ernie would frequently tour the lab, with a harmonica, when Avram and Aaron were there working in the summer with Keith and Art.