Madness and memory : the discovery of prions--a new biological principle / Stanley B. Prusiner.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Prusiner, Stanley B., 1942- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Prusiner, Stanley, 1942-.

Prusiner, Stanley.

Physicians--Biography.

Physicians.

History, 20th Century.

History, 21st Century.

Prions--History.

Prions.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (343 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New Haven, Connecticut : Yale University Press, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In 1997, Stanley B. Prusiner received a Nobel Prize, the world's most prestigious award for achievement in physiology or medicine. That he was the sole recipient of the award for the year was entirely appropriate. His struggle to identify the agent responsible for ravaging the brains of animals suffering from scrapie and mad cow disease, and of humans with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, had been waged largely alone and in some cases in the face of strenuous disagreement. In this book, Prusiner tells the remarkable story of his discovery of prions-infectious proteins that replicate and cause disease but surprisingly contain no genetic material-and reveals how superb and meticulous science is actually practiced with talented teams of researchers who persevere. He recounts the frustrations and rewards of years of research and offers fascinating portraits of his peers as they raced to discover the causes of fatal brain diseases. Prusiner's hypothesis, once considered heresy, now stands as accepted science and the basis for developing diagnoses and eventual cures. He closes with a meditation on the legacy of his discovery: What will it take to cure Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Lou Gehrig's and other devastating diseases of the brain?

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Author's Note

1. Growing Up

2. The Beginning of an Odyssey

3. A Plethora of Theories

4. The Scrapie Race

5. Dr. America and the Trembling Cannibals

6. The Battle for Tenure

7. What's in a Name?

8. Lost in the Pacific Fog

9. The Amyloid Story

10. Finding the Gene

11. Jousting with the Press

12. Deciphering Human Prion Diseases

13. What's in a Shape?

14. Turf Battles

15. Mad Cow and Other Prion Strains

16. Stockholm

17. The Third Judgment of Paris

Epilogue: The Quest for Therapeutics

Notes

Glossary

Acknowledgments

Illustration Credits

Index

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780300199260

0300199260

OCLC:

878149148