Daniel Carleton Gajdusek
Daniel Carleton Gajdusek | |
---|---|
Yonkers, New York, U.S. | |
Died | December 12, 2008 | (aged 85)
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | University of Rochester, Harvard Medical School |
Known for | Early discovery of prion disease |
Awards | E. Mead Johnson Award (1963) Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1976) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Medicine |
Daniel Carleton Gajdusek (
In 1996, Gajdusek was charged with
Early life and education
Gajdusek's father, Karol Gajdusek, was a Slovak butcher from
He obtained an
Career
In 1954, he worked as a visiting investigator at the
Kuru research
Gajdusek's best-known work focused on
Gajdusek was introduced to the problem of kuru by Vincent Zigas, a district medical officer in the Fore Tribe region of New Guinea. Gajdusek provided the first medical description of this unique neurological disorder, which was miscast in the popular press as the "laughing sickness" because some patients displayed risus sardonicus as a symptom. He lived among the Fore, studied their language and culture, and performed autopsies on kuru victims.
Gajdusek concluded that kuru was transmitted by the ritualistic consumption of the brains of deceased relatives, which was practiced by the Fore. He then proved this hypothesis by successfully transmitting the disease to primates and demonstrating that it had an unusually long incubation period of several years.[9] He did this by drilling holes into chimps' heads and placing pureed brain matter into the cerebellum.[10][11] These animals then developed symptoms of kuru. This was the first demonstration of the infectious spread of a noninflammatory degenerative disease in humans.
Kuru was shown to have remarkable similarity to
"Unconventional viruses"
In his 1977 paper "Unconventional Viruses and the Origin and Disappearance of Kuru," Gajdusek postulated that the cause of kuru, scrapie and Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease were caused by what he termed an unconventional virus. In comparison to normal viruses, unconventional viruses had a long incubation period and did not cause an immune response in the host. Although Gajdusek noted that there were no demonstrable nucleic acids in unconventional viruses, he did not rule out the possibility that unconventional viruses contained RNA at a low level, despite their radiation resistance.[3]
These infectious agents were later discovered to be misfolded proteins, or prions.
Child molestation convictions
In the course of his research trips in the South Pacific, Gajdusek had brought 56 mostly male children back to live with him in the United States and provided them with the opportunity to receive high school and college education. One of these boys, now a grown man, later accused Gajdusek of
Gajdusek was charged with child molestation in April 1996, based on incriminating entries in published journals, his personal diary, and statements from a victim. In journals published and distributed by the NIH, Gajdusek wrote about sex between men and boys in New Guinea, Micronesia, and other Polynesian islands, and about his own sexual experiences with boys during his research trips.[12]
Gajdusek pleaded guilty in 1997 and, under a plea bargain, was sentenced to 12 months in jail. After his release in 1998, he was permitted to serve his five-year unsupervised probation in Europe. He never returned to the United States and lived in Amsterdam, spending winters in Tromsø, Norway,[13] where the polar night around the winter solstice helped him to do more work.[1]
Gajdusek's treatment was denounced in October 1996 as
The documentary The Genius and the Boys by Bosse Lindquist, first shown on BBC Four on June 1, 2009, notes that "seven men testified in confidentiality about Gajdusek having had sex with them when they were boys", that four said "the sex was untroubling", while for three of them "the sex was a shaming, abusive, and a violation". One of these boys, the son of a friend and now an adult, appears in the film. Furthermore, Gajdusek openly admits to molesting boys and his approval of incest.[15] The film tries to analyse Gajdusek's sexual behaviour, and also to understand his motivations for science, exploration, and life.
Death and legacy
Gajdusek died December 12, 2008, in Tromsø, Norway, at the age of 85. He was working and visiting colleagues in Tromsø at the time of his death.[16]
Hanya Yanagihara's 2013 novel, The People in the Trees, is based on Gajdusek's life, research, and child molestation conviction.[17] The novel centers on a character named A. Norton Perina, inspired by Gajdusek, who researches the life-extending properties of sacred turtle meat in Micronesia.[18]
Works
Books
- Acute Infectious Hemorrhagic Fevers and Mycotoxicosis in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1953), Washington, DC: Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
Articles and monographs
Daniel C. Gajdusek was a prolific science author come diarist, and published over 1,000 original papers, reviews and commentaries in scientific and medical journals.[19] This is an incomplete list of some of the more cited ones.
- Gajdusek, Daniel Carleton. Unconventional viruses and the origin and disappearance of kuru. National Institutes of Health, 1977.
- Gajdusek; Carleton, Daniel; Gibbs, Clarence J.; Alpers, Mâ (1966). "Experimental transmission of a Kuru-like syndrome to chimpanzees". Nature. 209 (5025): 794–796. S2CID 39242676.
- Gajdusek, Daniel Carleton (1957). "Degenerative disease of the central nervous system in New Guinea: the endemic occurrence of "kuru" in the native population". New England Journal of Medicine. 257 (20): 974–978. PMID 13483871.
- Gajdusek, Daniel Carleton (1985). "Hypothesis: interference with axonal transport of neurofilament as a common pathogenetic mechanism in certain diseases of the central nervous system". The New England Journal of Medicine. 312 (11): 714–719. PMID 2579335.
- Gibbs, Clarence J.; Carleton Gajdusek, Daniel (1969). "Infection as the etiology of spongiform encephalopathy (Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease)". Science. 165 (3897): 1023–1025. S2CID 206567023.
Further reading
- Anderson, Warwick (2008). The Collectors of Lost Souls: Turning Kuru Scientists into Whitemen. Baltimore: LCCN 2008007840.
- Rhodes, Richard (1997). Deadly Feasts: Tracking the Secrets of a Terrifying New Plague. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-684-82360-7.
External links
- Daniel Carleton Gajdusek on Nobelprize.org
- (in Hungarian) Current autobiography in Hungarian
- Carleton Gajdusek at IMDb
- D. Carleton Gajdusek Papers MSS 421. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego Library.
- David M. Asher with Michel B. A. Oldstone, "D. Carleton Gajdusek", Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences (2013)
References
- ^ a b Holley, Joe (December 16, 2008) "D. Carleton Gajdusek; Controversial Scientist", The Washington Post, p. B5.
- ^ a b "Physiology or Medicine 1976 – Press Release". Nobelprize.org. October 14, 1976. Retrieved July 21, 2018.
- ^ S2CID 2046908.
- National Library of Medicine.
- ^ "D. Carleton (Daniel Carleton) Gajdusek correspondence, 1934-1988". American Philosophical Society.
- ^ Maugh, Thomas (December 18, 2008). "D. Carleton Gajdusek dies at 85; Nobel Prize winner identified exotic disease, was unrepentant pedophile". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on January 27, 2013. Retrieved May 12, 2012.
- ^ Gillis, Justin (1996). "NIH SCIENTIST CHARGED WITH ABUSING TEEN". Washington Post. Retrieved November 26, 2022.
- ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved May 19, 2021.
- S2CID 45445649.
- ISBN 9781416507567.
- ^ "Fatal Infections". New England Anti-Vivisection. 2013. Retrieved July 23, 2013.
- ^ Molotsky, Irvin (February 19, 1997). "Nobel Scientist Pleads Guilty to Abusing Boy". The New York Times. Retrieved November 26, 2022.
- ^ Richmond C (February 24, 2009). "Carleton Gajdusek". The Guardian. Retrieved May 9, 2019.
- ^ Wojtas, Olga (March 27, 1998). "'Racist' Brand loses dismissal appeal". Times Higher Education. Retrieved May 12, 2012.
- ^ Lindquist, Bosse (June 1, 2009). "The Genius and the Boys". Storyville. BBC Four. Retrieved May 12, 2012.
- McNeil, Donald G. Jr. (December 15, 2008). "D. Carleton Gajdusek, Who Won Nobel for Work on Brain Disease, Is Dead at 85". The New York Times. Retrieved May 12, 2012.
- ^ Ciuraru, Carmela (September 27, 2013). "Bitter Fruit: 'The People in the Trees,' by Hanya Yanagihara". The New York Times. Retrieved March 12, 2015.
- ISBN 978-0385536776.
- ^ "D. Carleton Gajdusek Papers" (PDF). Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego. 2009.