Stanley Prusiner performed seminal research in the field of neurogenetics, identifying the prion, a unique infectious protein agent containing no DNA or RNA.

Prusiner was born on in Des Moines, Iowa. His father, Lawrence, served in the United States Navy, moving the family briefly to Boston where Lawrence Prusiner enrolled in Naval officer training school before being sent to the South Pacific. During his father's absence, the young Stanley lived with his mother in Cincinnati, Ohio. Shortly after the end of World War II, the family returned to Des Moines where Stanley attended primary school and where his brother, Paul, was born. In 1952, the family returned to Ohio where Lawrence Prusiner worked as a successful architect.

In Ohio, Prusiner attended the Walnut Hills High School, before being accepted by the University of Pennsylvania where he majored in Chemistry. At the University, besides numerous science courses, he also had...