Prusiner, Stanley

Prusiner, Stanley B. (1995). The Prion Diseases. Scientific American 272(1) 48-57. 

Prusiner, Stanley Ben (b. 1942) American neurologist and biochemist who was the first scientist since the discovery of viruses to detect an entirely new infective agent. Prusiner, as a young neurology resident, was in charge of a patient who died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). He decided to research the cause. Ten years later, he isolated small protein bodies, which he called prions, and showed that these were the cause of CJD and of the similar bovine spongiform encephalopathy. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1997. 

We thank our colleagues for their valuable contribution to this research fiber diffraction— Jeremy Bond, Sean Deverin, Dr. Leonid Shinchuk, and Dr. Deepak Sharma prions—Drs. Jack Nguyen, Michael Baldwin, Haydn Ball, Robert Fletterick, Fred Cohen, Stanley Prusiner, and Mario Salmona polyalanine—Drs. Sylvie Blondelle and Natalia Reixach and polyglutamine— Dr. Ron Wetzel. We also thank Dr. Andrew Bohm (Department of Biochemistry, Tufts University) for graciously granting us access to their X-ray diffraction facility. 

Stanley B. Prusiner Ph y siology / Med icine Discovery of prions... 

Glenn MiUhauser and Stanley B. Prusiner Prion protein binds five Cu(II) ions... 

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