Prof. Adriano Aguzzi wins the Artois-Baillet Latour Health Prize 2017. He received the prize, worth 250,000 Euros from Queen Mathilde from Belgium.
Adriano Aguzzi, Director of the Institute of Neuropathology at the University of Zurich, was awarded the prize for his innovative research on the molecular approach to biological neurological diseases caused by prions (the agents causing Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease).
Professor Aguzzi is honored for his ground breaking molecular studies of the basic biology of neurological diseases caused by prions. In the past 25 years, Professor Aguzzi’s team has tried to understand how prions enter the body and travel to the brain to trigger neurological disease. His research results have contributed to the understanding of other diseases involving aberrantly folded proteins, such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. His work is the fundament for drug development for these types of disorders, the foundation shared in their press release.
The Baillet Latour Health prize is Belgium’s major scientific prize and is internationally recognized as one of the most important awards for medical discoveries. It is issued by the Baillet Latour foundation that was founded to promote outstanding achievements in science, teaching or arts.
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