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+- Prions Jump Species Barriers on Sunday September 07 2008, @06:58PM palegray.net
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biotech
palegray.net writes "Nature is reporting on new findings that prions jump species barriers. Believed to be responsible for ailments such as Creutzfeld-Jakob disease and "mad cow" disease, prions are thought to disrupt biological processes by causing normal proteins to fold abnormally.
Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston have observed infectious prions from hamsters causing abnormal protein development in mice, along with a range of other observations on prion actions in test tube environments. From the article: "...they also found that when a prion jumps species, it produces a new kind of prion. 'This is very worrisome,' says Claudio Soto, who led the research, published in Cell. 'The universe of possible prions could be much larger than we thought.'"
Sounds like another good reason to donate your spare CPU cycles to projects like Folding@home."
Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston have observed infectious prions from hamsters causing abnormal protein development in mice, along with a range of other observations on prion actions in test tube environments. From the article: "...they also found that when a prion jumps species, it produces a new kind of prion. 'This is very worrisome,' says Claudio Soto, who led the research, published in Cell. 'The universe of possible prions could be much larger than we thought.'"
Sounds like another good reason to donate your spare CPU cycles to projects like Folding@home."
They also serve who only stand and wait.
-- John Milton
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