Kuru: 50 lat później

• Authors: Paweł P. Liberski

Title variants

EN

Kuru: 50 years later

• Languages of publication: EN PL

Abstracts

EN

Kuru is that unique field of scientific research, in which practically everything what has been achieved, had been achieved due to personal research endeavor of Daniel Carleton Gajdusek (born in 1923), one of the greatest scientists of the XX century. In October 11-12th, John Collinge and Michael Alpers organized at the Royal Society, London, UK, a meeting “The end of kuru: 50 years of research into an extraordinary disease”. That meeting was attended by the last survivors of early kuru research, who pioneered their work in the fifties of the XX century to open a new field of “slow viruses of man”. The latter term has been introduced by Björn Sigurdsson, who developed Institute of Experimental Pathology, University of Iceland. The term “slow viruses” has been then replaced by the term “prions”. The kuru field has been already honoured by two Nobel prizes – to Dr. D.C. Gajdusek (1976 with Baruch Blumberg, born in 1925) and to Stanley B. Prusiner (1997, born in 1942) and contributed to the third – for Kurt Wüthrich (born in 1938) for “for his development of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy for determining the three-dimensional structure of biological macromolecules in solution”. One of those molecules was prion protein in 1996.

PL

Kuru jest tym unikalnym obszarem badań, w którym praktycznie wszystkie osiągnięcia umożliwił osobisty wysiłek badawczy dra Daniela Carletona Gajduska (ur. w 1923 r.), jednego z największych uczonych XX wieku. John Collinge i Michael Alpers 11 i 12 października 2007 r. zorganizowali w Royal Society w Londynie sympozjum „The end of kuru: 50 years of research into an extraordinary disease”. Sympozjum to skupiło ostatnich żyjących badaczy kuru, którzy rozpoczęli swoje prace w latach pięćdziesiątych ubiegłego wieku, otwierając cały obszar badań nad „wirusami powolnymi człowieka”, pod którą to nazwą, wprowadzoną przez Bjorna Sigurdssona, założyciela Institute of Experimental Pathology, University of Iceland, kryją się obecne priony. Badania nad kuru i wirusami powolnymi człowieka i zwierząt (prionami) przyniosły już dwie nagrody Nobla - w 1976 dla D.C. Gajduska (wraz z Baruchem Blumbergiem, ur. 1925 r.) oraz w 1997 dla Stanleya B. Prusinera (ur. 1942 r.). Trzecia Nagroda Nobla także pośrednio odnosi się do wymienionych badań. Otrzymał ją Kurt Wutrich (ur. 1938 r.) za „wkład w rozwój spektroskopii magnetycznego rezonansu jądrowego dla określenia trójwymiarowej struktury makromolekuł biologicznych w roztworze”, między innymi określenia po raz pierwszy w 1996 r. struktury białka prionu.

Keywords

EN

D.C. Gajdusek; amyloid plaques; blaszki amyloidowe; kuru; neuropathology; neuropatologia; prions; priony

Discipline

• MEDICINE: MEDICINE

• Publisher: Medical Communications
• Journal: Aktualności Neurologiczne
• Year: 2007
• Volume: 7
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 148-157

Contributors

author

Paweł P. Liberski

• Zakład Patologii Molekularnej i Neuropatologii Katedry Onkologii UM w Łodzi, ul. Czechosłowacka 8/10, 92-216 Łódź

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• Document Type: article