Information about Stanley B. Prusiner

Stanley Prusiner

Born	May 28 1942 (1942--) (age 65) Des Moines, Iowa, United States
Residence	San Francisco, United States
Nationality	American
Field	Neurology, infectious disease
Institutions	University of California, San Francisco
Alma mater	University of Pennsylvania
Known for	Prions Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
Notable 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 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.^[0] 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.^[0] 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.^[2]

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

• Prusiner S. B. (1982). "Novel proteinaceous infectious particles cause scrapie". Science 216: 136 - 144. DOI:10.1126/science.6801762. 
• Prusiner S. B. (1991). "Molecular biology of prion diseases". Science 252: 515 - 1522. DOI:10.1126/science.1675487. 

External links

• Prusiner's Nobel Prize page
• The Official Site of Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize
• UCSF page

•  • [ e] Wolf Prize in Medicine Laureates
George Snell / Jean Dausset / Jon J. van Rood (1978) • Roger Sperry / Arvid Carlsson / Oleh Hornykiewicz (1979) • Csar Milstein / Leo Sachs / James L. Gowans (1980) • Barbara McClintock / Stanley Norman Cohen (1981) • Jean-Pierre Changeux / Solomon H. Snyder / James W. Black (1982) • Donald F. Steiner (1984) • Osamu Hayaishi (1986) • Puedro Cuatrecasas / Meir Wilchek (1987) • Henri G. Hers / Elizabeth F. Neufeld (1988) • John Gurdon / Edward B. Lewis (1989) • Maclyn McCarty (1990) • Seymour Benzer (1991) • Judah Folkman (1992) • Michael Berridge / Yasutomi Nishizuka (1994) • Stanley B. Prusiner (1995) • Mary F. Lyon (1997) • Michael Sela / Ruth Arnon (1998) • Eric Kandel (1999) • Avram Hershko / Alexander Varshavsky (2001) • Ralph L. Brinster / Mario Capecchi / Oliver Smithies (2002) • Robert Weinberg / Roger Y. Tsien (2004) • Alexander Levitzki / Anthony R. Hunter / Anthony Pawson (2005)
I I I I I

•  • [ e] Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Laureates
Baruch Blumberg / Daniel Gajdusek (1976) • Roger Guillemin / Andrew W. Schally / Rosalyn Yalow (1977) • Werner Arber / Daniel Nathans / Hamilton O. Smith (1978) • Allan Cormack / Godfrey Hounsfield (1979) • Baruj Benacerraf / Jean Dausset / George Snell (1980) • Roger Sperry / David H. Hubel / Torsten Wiesel (1981) • Sune Bergstrm / Bengt I. Samuelsson / John Vane (1982) • Barbara McClintock (1983) • Niels Jerne / Georges Khler / Csar Milstein (1984) • Michael Brown / Joseph L. Goldstein (1985) • Stanley Cohen / Rita Levi-Montalcini (1986) • Susumu Tonegawa (1987) • James W. Black / Gertrude B. Elion / George H. Hitchings (1988) • J. Michael Bishop / Harold E. Varmus (1989) • Joseph Murray / E. Donnall Thomas (1990) • Erwin Neher / Bert Sakmann (1991) • Edmond Fischer / Edwin G. Krebs (1992) • Richard J. Roberts / Phillip Sharp (1993) • Alfred G. Gilman / Martin Rodbell (1994) • Edward B. Lewis / Christiane Nsslein-Volhard / Eric F. Wieschaus (1995) • Peter Doherty / Rolf M. Zinkernagel (1996) • Stanley B. Prusiner (1997) • Robert F. Furchgott / Louis Ignarro / Ferid Murad (1998) • Gnter Blobel (1999) • Arvid Carlsson / Paul Greengard / Eric Kandel (2000)

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