著名的霍维茨奖将颁发给斯坦利·普鲁西纳

哥伦比亚大学将于10月23日星期四将1997年路易莎·格罗斯·霍维茨奖授予加州大学旧金山分校的神经学和生物化学教授斯坦利·b·普鲁西纳博士。今年的诺贝尔医学奖得主普鲁西纳博士因其在朊病毒(一种能够传播退行性神经系统疾病的蛋白质)方面的突破性研究而获奖。路易莎·格罗斯·霍维茨奖成立于1967年，每年颁发给在生物学或生物化学领域杰出的研究人员。此前被诺贝尔奖等其他奖项认可的研究不符合资格。今年5月，霍维茨奖委员会选择了普鲁西纳博士作为获奖者。几十年来，科学家们一直认为核酸——DNA或RNA——是感染的发展所必需的。但在1982年，普鲁西纳博士震惊了科学界，他提出，痒病(羊的一种神经退行性疾病)的感染病原体不是病毒或细菌，而是一种只含有蛋白质的新病原体，他称之为朊病毒。朊病毒——“蛋白质感染性颗粒”——是存在于大脑中的一种通常无害的蛋白质的畸形形式。朊病毒被认为是通过迫使正常蛋白质改变形状，从而对脑细胞产生毒性而致病的。它们与某些神经退行性疾病有关，如牛海绵状脑炎(更广为人知的是“疯牛病”)和克雅氏病(与疯牛病类似，但在人类中发生)。 In these diseases, holes develop in the brain, resulting in dementia and eventually death. In England, more than 130,000 cows have been affected by mad cow disease since the 1980s. Scientists believe the cows were infected by a food supplement made of the meat and bone meal from sheep that had scrapie. Researchers are now investigating whether people who ate the contaminated beef subsequently developed mad cow disease. Other diseases in the same class include fatal familial insomnia, Gertsmann-Straussler-Scheinker disease, and Kuru. Dr. Prusiner's work on prions has generated much controversy. "His findings go against the central dogma of biology, which is that you can transmit information only with DNA and RNA," says Dr. Michael Shelanski, the Francis E. Delafield Professor and Chairman of the department of pathology at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. "But in chemistry we know that there can be some passing of information based on structure." Prions can be seen as one end of a spectrum of disease-causing agents, he says. "After all, viruses don't `live' by themselves. They take command of the cell machinery and use that cell's genes to reproduce. Prions take this a step further and dispense with the nucleic acid. So you could view prions as the ultimate reduction." "At many junctures, the criticisms of both Dr. Prusiner and his work were severe," says David I. Hirsh, the Robert Wood Johnson, Jr. Professor and Chairman of the department of biochemistry and molecular biophysics at CPMC and chairman of the Horwitz Prize committee.

“尽管如此，普鲁西纳博士坚持不懈，几乎是单枪匹马地构建了导致他的工作被广泛接受的论据。”哥伦比亚总统乔治·鲁普将于10月23日在颁奖典礼上颁发霍维茨奖。同一天下午2点，在CPMC的校友礼堂，Prusiner博士将发表题为“朊病毒——人类和牛的致命构象变化”的演讲。路易莎·格罗斯·霍维茨奖是根据已故的s·格罗斯·霍维茨的遗嘱设立的，以纪念他的母亲。她是塞缪尔·大卫·格罗斯(Samuel David Gross, 1805-1889)的女儿，格罗斯是一位杰出的费城外科医生，他是缝合神经和肌腱方法的先驱，后来担任美国医学协会主席。自1967年霍维茨奖首次颁发以来，超过一半的获奖者后来获得了诺贝尔生理学、医学奖或化学奖。最近，Edward B. Lewis和Christiane Nusslein-Volhard共同获得了1995年的诺贝尔生理学奖，并在1992年获得了霍维茨奖。