Nobel Prize winning professor Prof. Daniel Shechtman announced run for president of Israel.

Shechtman, who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2011, is running for president, he announced on Friday night.

The Knesset is expected to choose the next head of state in June, ahead of the end of President Shimon Peres's tenure on July 27. If Shectman wins, he would be the first non-politician to win since biophysicist Ephraim Katzir in 1973.

A day after Shectman made the announcement, other prospective candidates began attacking him.