Professor David Ronald Brown (born 7 September 1964,

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

) is an Australian-born research scientist notable for his work on

prion diseases Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), also known as prion diseases, are a group of progressive, incurable, and fatal conditions that are associated with the prion hypothesis and affect the brain and nervous system of many animals, in ...

, which include

bovine spongiform encephalopathy Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad cow disease, is an incurable and always fatal neurodegenerative disease of cattle. Symptoms include abnormal behavior, trouble walking, and weight loss. Later in the course of th ...

and vCJD. His most notable research relates to the metal binding of the protein central to these diseases, the

prion A prion () is a Proteinopathy, misfolded protein that induces misfolding in normal variants of the same protein, leading to cellular death. Prions are responsible for prion diseases, known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSEs), w ...

protein, and its possible cellular role as an antioxidant. Brown was a member of the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee (SEAC), a British government advisory board on BSE and related diseases. Since then he has pursued research related to other neurodegenerative diseases.Research Profile
University of Bath

Career

Brown completed his studies at the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD) is a public university, public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania. One of Australia's six sandstone universities, it was one of the ...

at the age of 25 and gained the degrees B.Sc. M.Sc. and Ph.D. His doctoral studies were carried out in the Neurobiology Research Centre under Professor Max Bennett and involved research on nerve regeneration. After completing his Ph.D. he worked for several more years in Australia before moving to the US in 1993 where he worked at the

Albert Einstein College of Medicine The Albert Einstein College of Medicine is a Private university, private medical school in New York City. Founded in 1953, Einstein is an independent degree-granting institution within the Montefiore Einstein Health System. Einstein hosts Doc ...

. He moved to Germany and worked at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen (, commonly referred to as Georgia Augusta), is a Public university, public research university in the city of Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1734 ...

where he first began work on the study of prion diseases in the Department of Neuropathology with Hans Kretzschmar. In 1997 he moved to the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

and in 2001 to the

University of Bath The University of Bath is a public research university in Bath, England. Bath received its royal charter in 1966 as Bath University of Technology, along with a number of other institutions following the Robbins Report. Like the University ...

, where he is currently Professor of

Biochemistry Biochemistry, or biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology, a ...

. He consults in this capacity with the media. He is the author of several textbooks and a number of research papers on prion diseases, and has served on the boards of four scientific journals, including the

Journal of Neurochemistry The ''Journal of Neurochemistry'' is a biweekly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering all aspects of neurochemistry. It is published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the International Society for Neurochemistry and was established in 1956. The e ...

Prion research

Brown advanced research related to the role of metals in the cause of prion diseases such as vCJD. Media attention focused on this work when it became associated with that of the farmer Mark Purdey, who argued that human cases of vCJD might be caused by exposure to

manganese Manganese is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Mn and atomic number 25. It is a hard, brittle, silvery metal, often found in minerals in combination with iron. Manganese was first isolated in the 1770s. It is a transition m ...

rather than eating beef from BSE-infected cattle (the medical consensus).Charles backs controversial CJD research
Lorraine Fraser, ''The Telegraph'', 13 Jan 2002 Both Purdey and Brown agreed that exposure to elevated levels of manganese in the environment could increase the incidence of BSE. Brown's research showed that manganese causes the protein to change conformation, similar to that seen in prion diseases such as BSE. Additionally, his research also showed that animals with BSE and humans with vCJD had elevated levels of manganese in their brains, and that prion protein extracted from their brains retained some of this manganese. Brown agreed with Purdey only in as far as the potential for manganese to be a risk factor, increasing the likelihood that BSE or another prion disease would occur. Brown supported Purdey in his quest to investigate the potential role of manganese in prion disease and this led to the filming of a program for the BBC in which both Brown and Purdey appeared. While Purdey pursued the notion that environmental manganese was a cause of BSE (something that arguably could never be proven), Brown suggested that a

chelation therapy Chelation therapy is a medical procedure that involves the administration of chelating agents to remove heavy metals from the body. Chelation therapy has a long history of use in clinical toxicology and remains in use for some very specific medic ...

to remove the excess manganese from patients with vCJD could be of benefit. While Brown's more conventional research was very well funded, such

for prion disease was never funded despite support for the idea from a number of sources including

Charles, Prince of Wales Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms. Charles was born at Buckingham Palace during the reign of his maternal grandfather, King George VI, a ...

Select bibliography

Books * Brown, D. R. (2002) Prion Diseases and Copper Metabolism. Horwood Press, Chichester, UK. . * Brown D. R. (2005) Neurodegeneration and Prion Disease. Springer, USA. . * Kozlowski, H, Brown, D. R. and Valensin G. (2006) Metallochemistry of Neurodegeneration. Royal Society of Chemistry Publishing, UK. . * Brown, D. R. (2012) Brain Diseases and Metalloproteins, Pan Stanford Publishing, Singapore, . Articles * See Research Profile for selected papers.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, David R. 1964 births Living people Academics of the University of Bath Neurochemists Australian neuroscientists University of Sydney alumni