Stanley B. Prusiner

Infobox Scientist
name = Stanley Prusiner


image_width = 150px
caption =
birth_date = birth date and age|1942|5|28
birth_place = Des Moines, Iowa, United States
residence = San Francisco, United States
nationality = American
field = Neurology, infectious disease
work_institution = University of California, San Francisco
alma_mater = University of Pennsylvania
known_for = Prions
Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
prizes = Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1997)
Potamkin Prize (1991)
Lasker Award (1994)

Stanley Ben Prusiner (born May 28, 1942) is an American neurologist and biochemist. Currently the director of the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), Prusiner discovered prions, a class of infectious self-reproducing pathogens primarily or solely composed of protein. For his prion research he received the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 1994 and the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1997.

Prusiner was born in Des Moines, Iowa and spent his childhood in Des Moines and Cincinnati, Ohio, where he attended Walnut Hills High School. Prusiner received a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania and later received his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Prusiner then completed an internship in medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Later Prusiner moved to the National Institutes of Health, where he studied glutaminases in "E. coli" in the laboratory of Earl Stadtman. After three years at NIH, Prusiner returned to UCSF to complete a residency in neurology. Upon completion of the residency in 1974, Prusiner joined the faculty of the UCSF neurology department. Since that time, Prusiner has held various faculty and visiting faculty positions at both UCSF and UC Berkeley.

Prusiner won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1997 for his work proposing an explanation for the cause of bovine spongiform encephalopathy ("mad cow disease") and its human equivalent, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.cite web | url=http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1997/prusiner-autobio.html | title=Stanley B. Prusiner - Autobiography | publisher=NobelPrize.org | accessdate=2007-01-02] In this work, he coined the term "prion", which comes from "proteinaceous infectious particle that lacks nucleic acid" to refer to a previously undescribed form of infection due to protein misfolding. [cite news | url=http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/01/what_really_cau.html | title=What really causes mad cow disease? | publisher=Wired | date=January 31 2007 | accessdate=2007-01-02]

Prusiner was elected to the National Academy of Science in 1992 and to its governing council in 2007. He is also an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1993), the Royal Society (1996), the American Philosophical Society (1998), the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (2003), and the Institute of Medicine.

Awards

* Potamkin Prize for Alzheimer’s Disease Research from the American Academy of Neurology (1991)
* The Richard Lounsberry Award for Extraordinary Scientific Research in Biology and Medicine from the National Academy of Sciences (1993)
* The Gairdner Foundation International Award (1993)
* The Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research (1994)
* The Paul Ehrlich Prize from the Federal Republic of Germany (1995)
* The Wolf Prize in Medicine from the Wolf Foundation/State of Israel (1996)
* The Keio International Award for Medical Science (1996)
* The Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University (1997)
* The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1997)

References

*cite journal
author=Prusiner S. B.
title=Novel proteinaceous infectious particles cause scrapie
journal=Science
year=1982
volume=216
pages=136–144
doi=10.1126/science.6801762
pmid=6801762
*cite journal
author=Prusiner S. B.
title=Molecular biology of prion diseases
journal=Science
year=1991
volume=252
pages=1515–1522
doi=10.1126/science.1675487
pmid=1675487

External links

* [http://nobelprize.org/medicine/laureates/1997/ Prusiner's Nobel Prize page]
* [http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/horwitz/ The Official Site of Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize]
* [http://prusinerlab.ucsf.edu/index.php UCSF page]

Persondata
NAME= Prusiner, Stanley
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION= Neurologist, biochemist
DATE OF BIRTH= May 28, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH= Des Moines, Iowa, United States
DATE OF DEATH=
PLACE OF DEATH=