Nobel Prize

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Born 9 October 1950. ProfessionMs. Jody Williams is the founding coordinator of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), which was formally launched by six nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in October of 1992. Ms. Williams has overseen the growth of the ICBL to more than 1,000 NGOs in more than sixty countries. She has served as…

In the course of 1991, several nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and individuals began simultaneously to discuss the necessity of coordinating initiatives and calls for a ban on antipersonnel landmines. Handicap International, Human Rights Watch, Medico International, Mines Advisory Group, Physicians for Human Rights, and Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation came together in October 1992 to formalize…

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  Presentation Speech by Professor Ralf F. Pettersson of the Nobel Committee at , December 10, 1997. Translation of the Swedish text. Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, This year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Stanley B. Prusiner for his discovery of prions – a new biological principle…

NOBELFÖRSAMLINGEN KAROLINSKA INSTITUTET THE NOBEL ASSEMBLY AT THE KAROLINSKA INSTITUTE 6 October 1997 has today decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 1997 to Stanley B. Prusiner for his discovery of “Prions – a new biological principle of infection”. Summary The 1997 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded to…

2. When a cow is fed with offals derived from a PrPSc-infected sheep, prions are somehow taken up from the gut and transported to the brain. The details of this process are not yet known, but one likely scenario is that PrPSc enters a nerve ending (synapse) from where it is transported along the nerve…

This animation gives a very simplified view of how prions cause fatal neurodegenerative diseases of the brain in man and animals next step 1. The prion protein, PrP, is a normal constituent of many cell types in the body, notably nerve cells (neurons) in the brain. The name prion (pronounced pree-on) is derived from”proteinaceous infectious…

5. In neurons infected with the prion protein, more and more PrPSc will gradually be produced forming larger fibrillar aggregates. When a critical level of PrPSc has accumulated, the neurons die, resulting in large vacuoles. The affected brain regions become sponge-like in appearance, hence the name spongiform encephalopathies, to describe all prion diseases.