Stanley B.

Stanley B. Prusiner - biography. American neurologist Birth May 28, 1942 Place of Des Moines, Iowa Birth Known for Discovering a new class of proteins called prions, which have been linked to brain disorders Winning the 1997 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for his discovery of prions Career 1968 Received his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia 1974-1980 Assistant Professor of Neurology in Residence, University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco 1976-1988 Lecturer, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysicis, University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco 1979-1983 Assistant Professor of Virology in Residence, University of California School of Public Health, Berkeley 1980-1981 Associate Professor of Neurology in Residence, University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco 1981-1984 Associate Professor of Neurology, University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco 1982 Published a paper suggesting that certain proteins (prions) could cause brain disorders 1983-1984 Associate Professor of Virology in Residence, University of California School of Public Health, Berkeley 1984- Professor of Neurology, University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco, and Professor of Virology in Residence, University of California School of Public Health, Berkeley 1988- Professor of Biochemistry, University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco 1999- Director, Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases, University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco Did You Scientists have been slow to accept Prusiner's theory that prions can cause disease, because unlike other infectious agents, prions do not Know have DNA of their own and cannot replicate themselves. Prions are thought to cause Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, a neurological condition also called Mad Cow Disease. Prion research may lead to advances in our understanding of other neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer's. The term prion, which is short for proteinaceous infectious particles, should technically be proin, but Prusiner liked the sound of the former term better. When one of Prusiner's patients died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, he set out to find the disease's cause. The resulting research led to the discovery of prions. Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.