The Resume

(September 9, 1923-December 12, 2008)
Born in Yonkers, New York
Headed the brain studies lab at the National Institute of Neurological Disease (1970-97)
Studied kuru, a disease caused by prions (a class of proteins also responsible for mad cow disease, scrapie in sheep and goats, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans)
Co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Medicine (1976)
Last name pronounced 'Guy-dah-shek'

Why he might be annoying:

His claim that kuru was spread by cannibalism among the Fore tribe of New Guinea was disputed by some anthropologists.
He pled guilty to molesting one of the boys he had adopted from New Guinea (1997).
He complained that American laws were prudish, noting that sex with teenaged boys was normal in ancient Greece.
He spent his winters in Tromso, a Norwegian town located above the Arctic Circle, saying he could get more work done with the dark and the isolation.

Why he might not be annoying:

One of his graduate students wrote that his brain 'worked faster and at a higher level than anyone's I've ever met.'
Kurt Vonnegut said he got the idea for Ice-9 -- a crystal that 'teaches' water to harden into ice, freezing the world -- from kuru.
He used his Nobel Prize money to set up a trust fund for the education of his adopted children.

Credit: C. Fishel

Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

• 20th Century Scientists
• Alleged Kid Lovers
• C. Fishel's Profiles [Series 17]
• Celebrities Born on the Same Date [September] (Ranked: 9091923)
• Hungary for a Bagel [Hungarian Jews]
• I Adopted a Child
• I Attended Harvard
• I Died in 2008 (Ranked: 85)
• I Earned a Doctorate
• Look at Me, I'm Wearing Suspenders
• Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine (Ranked: 1976)
• Profiles 24501-24750 (Ranked: 24588)
• Scientists

Year In Review:

In 2023, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
In 2022, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
In 2021, Out of 10 Votes: 70.0% Annoying
In 2020, Out of 6 Votes: 83.33% Annoying
In 2019, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
In 2018, Out of 10 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
In 2016, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
In 2015, Out of 11 Votes: 45.45% Annoying
In 2014, Out of 11 Votes: 54.55% Annoying
In 2013, Out of 9 Votes: 55.56% Annoying
In 2012, Out of 15 Votes: 73.33% Annoying
In 2011, Out of 11 Votes: 81.82% Annoying
In 2010, Out of 21 Votes: 61.90% Annoying
In 2009, Out of 60 Votes: 40.0% Annoying
In 2008, Out of 49 Votes: 57.14% Annoying