Nobel Prizes and Prions: Professor Stanley Prusiner to give three special lectures

Lectures will cover Nobel Laureate's career and research - News

By Laura Gallagher
Wednesday 16 January 2008

Nobel Prize-winning neurologist Professor Stanley Prusiner will be visiting Imperial in January and February to talk about his pioneering career and his research into prions - infectious proteins that cause neurodegenerative diseases.

Professor Prusiner will deliver a special three-part Leverhulme Lecture Series, starting on Thursday 17 January with a lecture about his early career entitled 'Looking for a way out of the fog (1972 – 1978)'. Professor Prusiner's interest in prions started in 1972 whilst working at the University of California, San Francisco, when he admitted a patient suffering from Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease (CJD), a rare and fatal neurodegenerative disease which was then thought to be a virus.

He became fascinated by this and by other apparently related conditions and in 1982 he coined the term prion, to describe the proteins that appeared to be responsible for them. The assertion that a protein could be infectious was ground-breaking and it took many years of work to convince his critics.

Subsequent work has suggested that protein disorders are responsible not just for CJD but also for more common diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

Professor Steve Smith, Principal of the Faculty of Medicine, said of Professor Prusiner's visit: "We are very honoured that Professor Prusiner has agreed to deliver this series of special lectures. Discovering the role that proteins play in neurodegenerative diseases was a surprising breakthrough that generated a great deal of heated debate, so we are fortunate to have the opportunity to hear his personal account of one of the great stories of science."

Professor Prusiner is currently the Director of the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases at the University of California, San Francisco, as well as a Visiting Professor at Imperial College. He received the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 1994 and the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1997.

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Lecture Programme

All the lectures listed will be held in Theatre G16, Sir Alexander Fleming Building, South Kensington Campus

"Part A: Looking for a way out of the fog (1972-78)" - Thursday 17 January 17.30

Abstract: The early years - what was known, the intriguing state of knowledge, the bioassay problem and deciding how to begin.

"Part B: Searching for a virus and finding only protein (1978 - 87)" - Thursday 24 January, 17.30

Abstract: The middle years - cracking the bioassay, purifying the scrapie agent, discovering prions, identifying the prior protein (PrP), and cloning the PrP gene.

"Part C: The reality of prions (1988 - 07)" - Thursday 28 February, 17.30

Abstract: More recent times - molecular genetics, protein chemistry, new paradigm of disease, the landscape neurodegenerative diseases, and in quest of therapeutics.

Professor Prusiner's lectures are open to all. If you would like to attend, please email amy.thompson@imperial.ac.uk and indicate which lectures you plan to attend. Further information can be found on the Events website at www.imperial.ac.uk/events.