Jumping Prions

Prion news has not been widely discussed in North America, though Europeans are familiar with it due to the 1990s mad cow scare.


Prions jump species barrier
Test tube experiments may help identify the most hazardous prion proteins.
Amber Dance

Infectious prion proteins from hamsters can change normal proteins from mice into new, infectious forms of prion - simply by mixing the proteins together in a test tube.

Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston suggest their discovery could be turned into a useful test for whether a given prion strain is transmissible from one species to another. Prion proteins are responsible for Creutzfeld-Jakob disease and "mad cow" disease.

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