The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1976
Awarded on: 1976-10-14
"for their discoveries concerning new mechanisms for the origin and dissemination of infectious diseases"
Affiliations:
- National Institutes of Health – Bethesda, MD, USA
D. Carleton Gajdusek
Born: 1923-09-09 in Yonkers, NY, USA
Gender: male
Field: American medical researcher and Nobel Prize laureate
Biography
Daniel Carleton Gajdusek was an American physician and medical researcher who was the co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1976 for work on the transmissibility of kuru, implying the existence of an infectious agent, which he named an 'unconventional virus'. In 1996, Gajdusek was charged with child molestation and, after being convicted, spent 12 months in prison before entering a self-imposed exile in Europe, where he died a decade later.