Stanley prusiner facts of life

Stanley Ben Prusiner (born May 28, 1942) is an American neurologist and biochemist. He is the director of the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

Prusiner discovered prions, a class of infectiousself-reproducingpathogens primarily or solely composed of protein, a scientific theory considered by many as a heretical idea when first proposed.

Stanley prusiner facts of life

He received the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 1994 and the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1997 for research on prion diseases developed by him and his team of experts (D. E. Garfin, D. P. Stites, W.

J. Hadlow, C. M. Eklund) beginning in the early 1970s.

Early life, career and research

He was born in Des Moines, Iowa, into a Jewish family to Miriam (Spigel) and Lawrence Prusiner, an architect. He spent his childhood in Des Moines and Cincinnati, Ohio, where he attended Walnut Hills High School, where he was known as "the lit