Daniel Carleton Gajdusek

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Daniel Carleton Gajdusek ( GHY-də-shek; September 9, 1923 – December 12, 2008) was an American physician, medical researcher, and convicted child sex offender, 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 spent 12 months in prison after being convicted. He subsequently entered a self-imposed exile in Europe, where he died a decade later. Despite openly admitting to molesting boys and his approval of incest, Gajdusek still received support from many peers who advocated clemency and felt his crimes were lessened by his scientific contributions. 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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