Gajdusek, << GY duh shehk, >> Daniel Carleton (1923-2008), an American doctor and medical researcher, shared the 1976 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine with Baruch S. Blumberg. The two scientists received the award for their discoveries concerning the origin and spread of infectious diseases.
One of Gajdusek’s most significant research projects was on the origin and distribution of diseases among the Fore people of Papua New Guinea. In particular, he focused on a slow-acting fatal disease of the central nervous system known as kuru (trembling). Kuru occurred mainly in women and children, and it caused progressive destruction of brain tissue. After the first symptoms, it took about 6 to 12 months to become fatal.
Gajdusek determined that the disease was most likely a viral infection transmitted by cannibalism. It was a Fore funeral custom for some women and children to eat the brains of the deceased. This ritual was stopped by 1959 and the disease is now very rare. Later research into the disease suggested that Kuru is caused by prions, abnormal proteins that cause brain damage. Gajdusek’s research turned out to be of great importance for the study of multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, and other disorders of the nervous system.
Gajdusek also conducted much research into child growth and development, learning and behavior, and clinical pediatrics. In addition, he studied diseases that can affect the nervous system, such as rabies and plague, that regularly occur in certain countries, such as Iran, Afghanistan, and Turkey.
Gajdusek was born on Sept. 9, 1923, in Yonkers, New York. He studied physics at Rochester University and medicine at Harvard University. In 1958, Gajdusek was appointed head of the Laboratory for Central Nervous System Studies at the National Institutes of Health. He retired in 1997 and died on Dec. 11, 2008.
