ABOVE: Prion protein (shown in red) aggregating inside mouse neurons.
FLICKR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES, NIH
On Tuesday (July 27), five public research institutions in France announced they will suspend research on prions for three months. According to their joint press release, the decision was spurred by a case of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in someone who may have been exposed to prions in a research lab.
According to Science, CJD is the most common prion disease in humans. Prions are infectious misfolded proteins that cause other proteins to misfold and aggregate in the brain. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines two types of CJD: classical, which generally arises through spontaneous protein misfolding in the brain, and variant CJD (vCJD), which is believed to be caused by exposure to the same prion that causes mad cow disease. There are no vaccines or treatments for CJD, which ...
