Daniel Carleton Gajdusek
Daniel Carleton Gajdusek ( ; September 9, 1923 – December 12, 2008) was an American
physician and medical researcher who was the co-recipient (with
Baruch S. Blumberg) of the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1976 for work on the transmissibility of
kuru, implying the existence of an infectious agent, which he named an 'unconventional virus'. In 1996, Gajdusek was charged with
child molestation and, after being convicted, spent 12 months in prison before entering a self-imposed exile in Europe, where he died a decade later.
His papers are held at the
National Library of Medicine in
Bethesda, Maryland and at the
American Philosophical Society in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
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