American Wins Nobel in Medicine (http://more.abcnews.go.com/sections/world/nobe

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AWARDS GIVEN

Dario Fo

Stanley B. Prusiner

International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) and Jody

C. Merton and Myron S. Scholes

Chu, D. and Claude Cohen-

Tannoudji

D. Boyer, E. and Jens C. Skou

Prions are believed to cause a group of degenerative brain diseases,

including so-called mad cow disease

Nobel Prize Internet Archive

http://www.almaz. com/nobel/

American researcher Dr. Stanley B. Prusiner, left,

shakes hands with former Israeli President Ezer Weizman in Jerusalem. Prusiner

was named winner of the Nobel Prize in medicine (Mati/AP Photo)

By Jim Heintz

The Associated Press

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Oct. 6 — An American biologist who discovered a

new class of germ that causes “mad cow” disease and other brain-wasting

conditions won the Nobel Prize in medicine today.

Stanley B. Prusiner of the University of California, San

Francisco, was cited for his discovery of prions, “an entirely new genre of

disease-causing agents. ... Prusiner has added prions to the list of well-known

infectious agents, including bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites.”

The finding was controversial because prions, unlike other

germs, contain no genetic material; they are simply proteins. Prions are

believed to cause a group of degenerative brain diseases, including so-called

mad cow disease.

The prize, worth $1 million, is awarded by Sweden’s renowned

Karolinska Institute.

Insight Into Alzheimer’s

Last year, the British government warned that cattle with so-called

mad cow disease were the most likely cause of a variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob

disease in people. The cattle were believed to have eaten contaminated sheep

offal.

The citation said Prusiner, 55, made a discovery that provides

important insights into ‘understanding biological mechanisms underlying ...

‘dementia-related diseases for example Alzheimer’s disease and establishes a

foundation for drug development and new types of medical treatment strategies.”

The award comes after a quarter-century of research.

Prusiner began his work after one of his patients died of

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

Last year’s award went to Rolf M. Zinkernagel of Switzerland

and C. Doherty, an Australian working in the United States, for

discovering how the immune system recognizes infected cells—a finding that could

lead to new vaccines and therapies for cancer, diabetes and multiple sclerosis.

Distinguished Group of Winners

The previous year’s winners— and F. Wieschaus of

the United States and Christiane Nuesslein-Volhard of Germany—were cited for

work that began on fruit flies but developed into advances that improved the

understanding of how birth defects occur.

Others to receive the prize have included Baltimore, who

shared the prize in 1975, long before becoming one of the world’s most visible

AIDS researchers.

Alan Cormack of the United States and Sir Godfrey Hounsfield

may not be familiar names, but what they won the prize for in 1979 is a term

known by most patients: computer-assisted tomography—or CAT scan.

The prize, sometimes awarded for work in physiology rather than

strictly defined medicine, will be followed on Friday with the announcement of

the peace prize in Olso, Norway. The economics prize is to be announced on Oct.

14 and the physics and chemistry prize winners will be named the next day.

In keeping with tradition, the date of the literature prize

announcement will not be made known until a few days beforehand. The prize

always is announced on a Thursday.

The prizes are presented on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the

death of Alfred Nobel, the industrialist and inventor of dynamite whose will

established the prizes.

Copyright 1997 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material

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