Gajdusek, Daniel Carleton

Gajdusek, Daniel Carleton (gīd'ushek") [key], 1923–, American virologist, b. Yonkers, N.Y., M.D. Harvard, 1945. He worked in the United States, Iran, and Australia studying infectious diseases, particularly kuru, a viral brain disease spread among the Fore people of New Guinea by cannibalism. In 1958 he joined the National Institutes of Health, where he conducted research until his retirement in 1997. In 1976, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Baruch S. Blumberg.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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