In this biography
Quick facts
- Born
- 1942
- Birthplace
- Des Moines, IA, USA
- Country
- United States
- Nationality
- Not independently established
- Known for
- Discovery of prions and investigation of protein-based infectivity
Why this life matters
Those are connected claims, each requiring its own observations.
Timeline
Key moments
Birth
Born in Des Moines, IA, USA.
Nobel recognition
Received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
From chemistry to a neurological problem
Stanley Prusiner was born in Des Moines in 1942 and grew up in Cincinnati. He studied chemistry and medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, receiving his medical degree in 1968. His autobiography describes early research experiences that included hypothermia and biochemical measurements, before his later work at the University of California, San Francisco. His best-known question concerned an infectious agent associated with degenerative disease: what carried its activity if ordinary assumptions about a viral genome did not fit the observations?
Naming an experimentally difficult agent
In 1982 Prusiner introduced the term prion for a proteinaceous infectious particle. His autobiography recounts both purification work and vigorous objections to the proposal. That retrospective account is the investigator's perspective on a contested programme; the more useful scientific question is which observations discriminated between competing explanations. His published Nobel lecture discusses a normal cellular prion protein and a disease-associated form whose folding differs. A gene can encode the protein without being a separately packaged infectious genome.
A new principle with carefully stated boundaries
Prusiner received the 1997 medicine prize for the discovery of prions. The work connected infection, inherited variation and protein conformation in a way that challenged familiar categories. It did not mean that all proteins are infectious or that every neurodegenerative disorder is explained by the same mechanism. The contribution becomes clearer when the identity of a protein's amino-acid sequence is separated from its spatial arrangement and from the experimental evidence for transmission. Those are connected claims, each requiring its own observations.
Quick answers
Frequently asked questions about Stanley B. Prusiner
- What is Stanley B. Prusiner known for?
- Discovery of prions and investigation of protein-based infectivity.
Keep exploring
Lives connected to this story
- Baruch S. Blumberg
Compare the related experimental question and research career.
- Thomas R. Cech
Compare the related experimental question and research career.
Sources and further reading
Explore the evidence
These references support the biography and offer further reading. Official records, first-person accounts and independent reporting provide different perspectives; image records document attribution and licensing.
- 1. Nobel Prize OutreachStanley B. Prusiner โ Facts
Source scope: Birth/death and award metadata; short official work summary.
- 2. Nobel FoundationStanley B. Prusiner โ Biographical
Source scope: Selected historical passages, as recorded in the research evidence ledger; not a full-document reading claim.
- 3. Stanley B. Prusiner / PNASPrions: published Nobel lecture
Source scope: Abstract and figure2 caption, web lines245โ275. Scanned original Nobel PDF has no readable extracted text and is not counted as a full read.
