Summary: Scientists have developed a method -- 10,000 times more sensitive than other methods -- to detect variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (vCJD) in blood plasma. vCJD is a type of prion disease in humans that leads to brain damage and death. The researchers also used the test to rapidly detect scrapie, a prion disease of sheep, in infected hamsters, some pre-symptomatic. Read more
A prion is a nonliving, self-replicating infectious agent made of protein. It can reproduce with the aid of its host's biological machinery, like a virus. "Prion" is short for "proteinaceous infectious particle."
The idea of an infectious agent lacking nucleic acids for reproduction was initially met with skepticism when the idea was proposed in the 60s, because such a phenomenon had never been observed before. While self-replicating nucleic acid-based entities are well-understood, the mechanism of self-replication among prions is still a mystery. Prions found in animals exclusively infect the brain, are fatal and untreatable. Prions have been discovered in fungi, but rather than damaging them, it is theorized that they may play a symbiotic role in the fungi's immune system. Read more
