Scripps Florida scientists devise accelerated method to determine infectious prion strains
JUPITER, FL, May 28, 2009 Current tests to identify specific strains of infectious prions, which cause a range of transmissible diseases (such as mad cow) in animals and humans, can take anywhere from six months to a year to yield results a time-lag that may put human populations at risk. Now,...Malaria Drug Doesn't Boost Survival Odds With Prion Diseases
Oral quinacrine showed no benefit for brain-wasting disorders such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob WEDNESDAY, March 11 (HealthDay News) -- The drug quinacrine doesn't prolong survival of patients with brain-wasting prion diseases such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), British researchers say. ...Mutant proteins result in infectious prion disease in mice
A worldwide group of scientists has created an infectious prion disease in a mouse model, in a step that may help unravel the mystery of this progressive disease that affects the nervous system in humans and animals. The research team, including Christina J. Sigurdson, D.V.M., Ph.D., assistant pr...New prion protein discovered by Canadian scientists may offer insight into mad cow disease
Scientists have discovered a new protein that may offer fresh insights into brain function in mad cow disease. Our team has defined a second prion protein called Shadoo, that exists in addition to the well-known prion protein called PrP said Professor David Westaway, director of the Centre for P...New Insights into Prion Propogation
Prions -- infectious, oddly-folded proteins that are the main suspects in fatal neurodegenerative diseases such as Cruetzfeldt-Jakob and bovine spongiform encephalopathy , or "mad cow" -- remain mostly a mystery to scientists. Very few prions have been fully described. How they infect and propagate...Significant Advances in VCJD Prion Detection
Scientists have made significant advances towards the development of a technique that could be used to confirm whether someone is infected with variant CJD . The technique, which has so far been used mainly in animal models, works by mimicking and accelerating the replication of prions - abnor...Vaccine Prevents Prion Disease in Mice
An oral vaccine can prevent mice from developing a brain disease similar to mad cow disease, according to research that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 59th Annual Meeting in Boston, April 28 May 5, 2007. Prion diseases, which include scrapie, mad cow disease, and chronic...Vaccine Prevents Prion Disease in Mice
An oral vaccine can prevent mice from developing a brain disease similar to mad cow disease, according to research that will be presented at the American// Academy of Neurology's 59th Annual Meeting in Boston, April 28 – May 5, 2007. Prion diseases, which include scrapie, mad cow disease, and chron...Study Finds Prion Proteins in Milk
A study has identified the presence of normal prion proteins in milk from humans, cows, sheep//, and goats. "Prion Protein in Milk" appeared in the December issue of PLoS One, an online journal from the Public Library of Science, available at www.plosone.org. Infectious prion proteins cause...Role of Hsp 104 in the Spread of Prion Diseases
Protein’s role in the spread of the lethal Prion diseases has been brought to light by researchers from Brown University//. This was published in an online edition of PLoS Biology. Researchers under Tricia Serio have revealed that the protein Hsp 104 is responsible for the spread and multiplic...Mayo Clinic Study Identifies Potential Causes of Young-Onset Dementia
...6. In one-third of patients, the dementia was caused by a neurodegenerative disorder such as frontotemporal dementia, Huntington's disease or familial prion disease. However, Alzheimer's disease was an uncommon cause. In 20 percent of patients, young-onset dementia was caused by autoimmune or inflammatory ...K-State Researchers Bringing Expertise to Kansas City Symposium on Disease and National Security
...ff the symposium at 8:30 a.m. with "BSE Prions and Flu Viruses: Two Distinct Zoonotic Agents." This presentation will provide a basic understanding of prion diseases, especially bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease. He'll discuss the molecular features of typical and atypical cases of mad c...Adlyfe Study on the Detection of Misfolded Proteins Published in the Journal Transfusion
...seases, announced today the publication of a study, "Detection of misfolded prion protein in blood with conformationally sensitive peptides," in the August 2...fe's MPD assay is a sensitive and specific test for the detection misfolded prion proteins that may be useful in both preclinical and clinical diagnosis tran...Artificial induction of immunity
...system is developing. Synthetic ( recombinant or cell-clone) human immunoglobulins can now be made, and for several reasons (including the risk of prion contamination of biological materials) are likely to be used more and more often. However, they are expensive to produce and are not in large-scale p...Iron is involved in prion disease-associated neuronal demise
Imbalance of iron homeostasis is a common feature of prion disease-affected human, mouse, and hamster brains, according to a new study by Dr. Neena Singh and colleagues at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, alongside collaborators from Creighton University. These findings, publish...Scripps scientists develop new tests that identify lethal prion strains quickly and accurately
One of the new in vitro tests, called the Standard Scrapie Cell Assay, measures prion infectivity levels in a highly accurate and extremely rapid way, producing results in less than two weeks. The second test, called the Cell Panel Assay, allows researchers to quickly distinguish between several p...Lymph nodes can be key in spreading prion infectivity
Lymph nodes can be crucial for spreading low doses of infective prion agents -the pathogens responsible for conditions such as scrapie and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease - into the nervous system, according to new research published in the online open access journal BMC Veterinary Research. While we ca...NIH awards researcher $1.5 million 'new innovator' grant for fruit-fly studies of prion proteins
GALVESTON, Texas -- The National Institutes of Health has selected University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) Assistant Professor of Neurology Pedro Fernandez-Funez to receive a five-year, $1.5 million NIH Directors New Innovator Award. NIH Director Dr. Elias Zerhouni will officiall...Redefining what it means to be a prion
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (April 2, 2009) Whitehead Institute researchers have quintupled the number of identifiable prion proteins in yeast and have further clarified the role prions play in the inheritance of both beneficial and detrimental traits. "The big debate in the field is are the prions funct...Common soil mineral degrades the nearly indestructible prion
MADISON In the rogues' gallery of microscopic infectious agents, the prion is the toughest hombre in town. Warped pathogens that lack both DNA and RNA, prions are believed to cause such fatal brain ailments as chronic wasting disease (CWD) in deer and moose, mad cow disease in cattle, scrapie in...Vaccine prevents prion disease in mice
An oral vaccine can prevent mice from developing a brain disease similar to mad cow disease, according to research that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 59th Annual Meeting in Boston, April 28 ?May 5, 2007. Prion diseases, which include scrapie, mad cow disease, and chronic ...Scripps research study reveals structural dynamics of single prion molecules
The new findings, which are being published the week of February 12 in an online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, offer significant insights into normal folding mechanisms as well as those that lead to abnormal amyloid fibril conversion. The new insights may lead to t...Brown team finds crucial protein role in deadly prion spread
A single protein plays a major role in deadly prion diseases by smashing up clusters of these infectious proteins, creating the "seeds" that allow fatal brain illnesses to quickly spread, new Brown University research shows. The findings are exciting, researchers say, because they might reveal a ...New evidence questions the simple link between prion proteins and madcow disease
While newly published research confirms that under laboratory circumstances prion-protein can be absorbed across the gut, it also shows that this is unlikely to occur in real life. In addition, the results show that the places in the gut that do take up these disease-associated proteins are differe...ProMetic announces scale-up of prion removal resin in plasma product for biopharmaceutical use
- First phase of development of product to reduce risk of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease from plasma product completed on schedule - Scale-up phase worth $ 1 M to ProMetic - Multi-million dollar long-term agreement to supply prion removal affinity resin following regul...Prometic provides information for its Annual and Special Meeting of Shareholders
... the Meeting's agenda as per the Management Information Circular - Corporate Presentations - MacoPharma presents update on launch of P-Capt(R) prion capture filter - Protein Technologies business update - Anemia drugs program update - PBI-1402 and analogues - Corporate strategy to bui...ProMetic to obtain controlling stake in Pathogen Removal and Diagnostic Technologies Inc.
... commercialization of the P-Capt(R) filter and the prion reduction resin that was fully licenced to ProMeti...on reduction filter, in addition to the use of the prion capture affinity resin for biopharmaceutical use, ...positioned to capitalize on the growing market for prion removal. Corporate control moving from ARC to ProM...Prometic to present at the American Chemical Society
...e risks from blood-associated TSE infectivity with prion affinity ligands". Dr. Gurgel's lecture titled "...to the identification of a specific ligand for the prion protein responsible for the transmission of mad co...ase in humans. This ligand is being used to remove prion protein from blood products. Dr. Carbonell is the ...ProMetic provides business update - Over $35 million worth of business secured in January
... - Shipment of prion capture resin to MacoPharma in Q1 2008; - MacoPh...P-Capt(R) filters sale in 2008; - Use of affinity prion adsorbent for plasma-derived products to generate ...holders," added Mr. Laurin. - ProMetic to ship prion capture resin in Q1 2008 for incorporation into ...