NOBEL PRIZE FOR PRIONS

Abstract

The 1997 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, including a cash award of about $1 million, was bestowed last week on Stanley B. Prusiner, professor of neurology biochemistry at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). The award honors Prusiner's 1982 proposal that infectious proteins called prions cause fatal nervous system disorders his subsequent research to confirm the proposal. The prion disorders, called transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), include scrapie mad cow disease in animals Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in people. These neurodegenerative disorders impair mental ability muscle control are ultimately fatal. According to the Nobel Foundation, Stockholm, Prusiner's discovery provides important insights that may furnish the basis to understand the biological mechanisms of such dementia-related diseases and establishes a foundation for drug development new types of medical treatment strategies. Initially, Prusiner's prion hypothesis was roundl...