The recipients of the 1997 Nobel Prizes in science, who will receive their awards on December 10, have traveled the vigorous intellectual journey of science. They all toppled old theories while building new ones. Along the way, they gained collaborations and corroboration from colleagues. They also endured skepticism, which in some cases still persists, despite their noted accomplishments.
Work conducted by Prusiner and many others has resulted in enough evidence to convince the Nobel Prize committee and much of the scientific community that prions play a role in causing neurodegenerative diseases including kuru, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and transmissible spongiform encephalopathies such as scrapie and mad cow disease. Most scientists now accept Prusiner's hypothesis that prions-tiny proteins found in nerve cells, white blood cells, and the brain surface-sometimes mysteriously fold. These misshapen proteins somehow trigger neighbor proteins to behave similarly. The resulting chain reaction of destruction degenerates the brain.
Prusiner; William J. ...
