Nobel Prize Winner Stanley Prusiner To Receive Honorary Degree

July 14, 2000
University Park, Pa. — Penn State’s Board of Trustees approved the recommendation today (July 14) that Stanley B. Prusiner, M.D., professor of neurology and biochemistry at the University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco, be granted an honorary Doctorate of Science Degree at the College of Medicine commencement ceremony on May 20, 2001.

Dr. Prusiner received the 1997 Nobel Prize in physiology and is recognized internationally for his contribution to the understanding of a new biological principle of infection. He discovered an entirely new class of pathogens, which he called "prions," that are composed only of protein and replicate without nucleic acid. Through this work, he created a new field of research that has resulted in significant progress in understanding degenerative diseases of the central nervous system such as Mad Cow Disease, Human Prion Disease and age-dependent neurological diseases.

He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as well as the Royal Society, London. He has won many awards for his research into prions, including the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award, the Wolf Prize in Medicine and the Paul Ehrlich Award, and has published widely on prions.

Dr. Pruisner received his A.B. and M.D. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, his postgraduate clinical training at UCSF and his research training at the National Institutes of Health as a member of the U.S. Public Health Service. He joined the faculty at UCSF in 1974.

Contact: Christy Rambeau 814-865-7517 or e-mail at