Professor Stanley Prusiner, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1997, will speak tonight at Imperial in the first of three lectures.

Prusiner coined the word ‘prion’ and pioneered work on CJD and other neurodegenerative diseases involving rogue proteins.

The three special lectures explore Prusiner’s career and the history of prion research. The following information is taken from Imperial’s news and events page:

Part A: Looking for a way out of the fog (1972-78) – Thursday 17 January 17.30

The early years – what was known, the intriguing state of knowledge, the bioassay problem and deciding how to begin.

Part B: Searching for a virus and finding only protein (1978 – 87) – Thursday 24 January, 17.30

The middle years – cracking the bioassay, purifying the scrapie agent, discovering prions, identifying the prior protein (PrP), and cloning the PrP gene.

Part C: The reality of prions (1988 – 07) – Thursday 28 February, 17.30

More recent times – molecular genetics, protein chemistry, new paradigm of disease, the landscape neurodegenerative diseases, and in quest of therapeutics.

The lectures take place in Theatre G16, Sir Alexander Fleming Building, South Kensington Campus. Reservation is recommended.