In 1997, Stanley B. Prusiner (University of Pennsylvania, A.B. 1964, M.D. 1968) was awarded the 1997 Nobel Prize for Medicine for his discovery of Prions – a new biological principle of infection.

This new class of pathogen is now accepted as the infectious agent in “mad cow disease” and in human neurodegenerative diseases such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.