A new test may detect the presence of abnormal proteins indicative of a deadly prion disease known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD). By adapting an established blood test for variant CJD, ...

Please can you give a brief introduction to prions and the neurodegenerative diseases they cause? The prion diseases were originally discovered by Dr Gajdusek and Dr Gibbs. The first disease ...

A technique for detecting prions in tissue, developed in recent years by UCSF scientists, is significantly more sensitive than the diagnostic procedures currently used to detect the lethal particles ...

Prion diseases aren't common, but they are scary. Incurable and inevitably fatal, they can be either genetic or infectious, although the latter only occurs via contact with infected tissue. However, a ...

If you’re familiar with the word prion than you probably associate it with dysfunction and disease. Prions infamously cause bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly known as mad cow disease, as well ...

One of the strangest things that can sicken us—a rogue misfolded protein that destroys the brain, known as a prion—is even scarier than we knew. Researchers were able to find the prions responsible ...

Researchers have identified the amino acid sequences that allow prions to aggregate and replicate - and thereby pass through generations of cells - and prove this by designing an artificial yeast ...

Special proteins known as prions, which are perhaps best known as the agents of mad cow and other neurodegenerative diseases, can also serve as an important source of beneficial variation in nature.

Prions, which cause diseases such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob and BSE (commonly called mad cow), are pretty scary stuff. They don't have any genetic material; instead, they're made from a protein that's ...

In the novel Cat's Cradle, an eccentric scientist develops a substance called Ice-9 that crystallizes every drop of water it touches. Eventually, it freezes the world's oceans. Now, 40 years after ...

People with the rare and fatal brain disorder Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) show signs of the disease in their eyes, according to a new study. The study found evidence of prions — the infectious ...