Daniel Carleton Gajdusek facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Daniel Carleton Gajdusek
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| Born | September 9, 1923 |
| Died | December 12, 2008 (aged 85) |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | University of Rochester, Harvard Medical School |
| Known for | Early discovery of prion disease |
| Awards | E. Mead Johnson Award (1963) Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1976) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Medicine |
| Influenced | Lukas Plank |
Daniel Carleton Gajdusek (pronounced GHY-də-shek; born September 9, 1923 – died December 12, 2008) was an American doctor and medical scientist. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1976. He won this award for his important work on a disease called kuru. He showed that kuru could be passed from person to person. He also suggested that a new type of infectious agent, which he called an 'unconventional virus', was causing it.
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Early Life and Education
Daniel Gajdusek was born in Yonkers, New York. His father was from Slovakia, and his mother's family came from Hungary. He went to the University of Rochester and graduated in 1943. There, he studied many subjects like physics and biology.
He then earned his medical degree (M.D.) from Harvard University in 1946. After that, he did more research at other famous universities. In 1951, he joined the U.S. Army as a researcher who studied viruses. Later, in 1954, he moved to Australia. It was there that he started the research that would lead to his Nobel Prize.
Understanding Kuru Disease
Gajdusek is most famous for his work on kuru. This brain disease was very common among the South Fore people in New Guinea during the 1950s and 1960s. Gajdusek found that the disease spread because of a special custom. The Fore people would ritually eat the brains of their dead relatives.
He worked with a doctor named Vincent Zigas who first told him about kuru. Gajdusek lived among the Fore people. He learned their language and studied their culture. He also performed autopsies (examinations after death) on people who died from kuru.
Gajdusek discovered that kuru was passed on through this ritual eating. He proved this by giving the disease to chimpanzees. He showed that the disease took many years to appear after infection. This was the first time anyone showed that a brain disease could spread in humans without causing inflammation. When the Fore people stopped the ritual eating, kuru slowly disappeared.
Kuru was found to be very similar to scrapie, a disease that affects sheep and goats. Later, other human diseases like Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease were found to be similar too. Gajdusek realized these diseases were caused by a new kind of infectious agent. Later research by Stanley Prusiner and others identified these agents as prions. Prions are misfolded proteins that can cause other proteins to misfold.
What are "Unconventional Viruses"?
In 1977, Gajdusek wrote about what he called "unconventional viruses." He thought these were the cause of kuru, scrapie, and Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease. Unlike normal viruses, these "unconventional viruses" took a very long time to cause sickness. They also did not trigger an immune response in the body. This means the body's defense system did not fight them off.
Gajdusek noticed that these agents did not seem to have nucleic acids (like DNA or RNA). These mysterious infectious agents were later found to be prions.
Later Life and Legacy
Daniel Gajdusek passed away on December 12, 2008, in Tromsø, Norway. He was 85 years old and was visiting colleagues there. His work helped us understand a whole new type of disease.
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Daniel Carleton Gajdusek
See also
In Spanish: Daniel Carleton Gajdusek para niños
