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Mad Mouse Disease created in lab
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By NerdGirl
from the only science geeks will find this interesting department, Section News
Posted on Fri Jul 30, 2004 at 03:53:16 PM GMT
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It appears that for the first time since they were theorized about in 1982, prions have been synthesized in the lab.
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| New Scientist gives a pretty nice synopsis of all this, but the actual results were reported in Science (Note: subscription required. See if your alma mater has one that'll let you login.)
Basically, it appears that scientists have synthesized the misshapen brain protein that causes Mad Cow Disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy to the nerds out there), Chronic Wasting Disease in deer, Scrapie in sheep, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease in humans. When injected into mice, they began to exhibit symptoms. After a while, the brains of these mice were ground up and injected into the heads of other mice, which exhibited symptoms even faster.
Naturally, other research will be needed to confirm all this, but it's kinda cool to see solid evidence that proteins can cause disease on their own. |
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