Question

Who first discovered prions?

Answer 1

Hint: He is an American neurologist and biochemist who has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in the year 1997 for his discovery of prions – a new biological principle of infection. He also called the prion a “proteinaceous infectious particle”.

Correct answer:
Stanley B. Prusiner first discovered prions. For this discovery, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1997. Stanley B. Prusiner was born in 1942. At the University of California, San Francisco he is the director of the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases. In 1982, a suspected infectious agent was isolated by him which is a protein that he named a prion. He succeeded in identifying the gene responsible for the prion protein but also observed that it remains present in healthy people as well as animals.
-Prion is a small infectious protein and in man and animals, it is capable of causing fatal dementia-like diseases.
-All the infectious agents like viruses, bacterias, parasites, and fungi possess a genome which is the hereditary material that provides the basis for their replication.
-It has been known for about a century that infectious diseases are often caused by bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites.
-The ability to duplicate is important for the manifestation of the diseases they cause.
-Duplication without a genome was considered impossible until prions were discovered.
-A most remarkable feature of prion diseases is that they can arise in three different ways.
-The most remarkable feature of prions is that they're ready to replicate themselves without possessing a genome; prions lack hereditary material.
-Although the existence of prions wasn't known until the work of Stanley Prusiner.
-The prions can occur spontaneously or are often triggered by infection, or they will also occur as a consequence of hereditary predisposition.

Note:
-The term “prions” refers to abnormal, pathogenic agents that are transmissible and are found most abundantly in the brain.
-To destroy a prion it must be denatured to the purpose that it can not cause normal proteins to misfold.
-For reliable destruction of a prion sustained heat for several hours at extremely high temperatures that are 900°F and above should be provided.