Back to Our Leadership

Stanley B. Prusiner, MD

  • Board of Directors
  • Honorary Member
Published on:
Headshot of Stanley B. Prusiner, MD

In 2007, Dr. Stanley B. Prusiner accepted BrightFocus' offer to become an honorary member of our Board of Directors. Prusiner won the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of prions, infectious proteins in the brain that cause bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow” disease) and in humans, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. There are similarities between the loss of brain function in prion diseases and in Alzheimer's disease. Both prions and beta-amyloid, respectively, are natural human proteins that, under certain conditions, can form harmful deposits in the brain. Prusiner's dedication to understanding how prion disease begins and develops may one day lead to a treatment and cure for Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative and aging conditions.

Prusiner continues his work as the Director of the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases and Professor of Neurology at the University of California, San Francisco where he has worked since 1972. In October 2010, he was named by the President to receive the National Medal of Science, the United States of America's highest honor for science and technology. BrightFocus is extremely proud that Prusiner, a world-renowned researcher and former BrightFocus grantee, has committed his time and efforts to our mission.

Read more about Dr. Prusiner and his work.

 

Nobel Laureate Stanley Prusiner Accepts the BrightFocus Award® for Scientific Impact

  • So let me begin by saying how sorry I am that I'm not able to be in Washington to receive this award in person, but I'm very honored to receive the award and the funds will be used to help advance our studies. I think one has to realize that that foundations have a unique place in science and that they are so important in lifting the veils of ignorance as we move forward and some foundations are much better with BrightFocus and the predecessor, the American Health Assistance Foundation, it's been a an organization that made many of my discoveries possible and many other discoveries that the grants have been so important in propelling American science forward and there even been some grants outside of the United States, which shows the liberal big-picture view for what is now called BrightFocus and the people behind this have always just been wonderfully supportive not only to me I'm a privileged to be here today on video.