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From: BCHS1B@jane.uh.edu
Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.med
Subject: Re: What ever happened to PRIONS ???  (scrapie, C-J, BSE)
Message-ID: <4926@jane.uh.edu>
Date: 12 Nov 89 18:31:46 GMT
References: <23936@cup.portal.com>
Organization: University of Houston
Lines: 21

In article <23936@cup.portal.com>, mmm@cup.portal.com (Mark Robert Thorson) writes:
> A couple years ago, a researcher at UCSF claimed that certain diseases,
> including scrapie and Creuzfeldt-Jakob syndrome, were caused by an
> infective agent he called "prions".  Prions are said to be like viruses,
> but are composed of protein only, no RNA or DNA.
> 
> If true, this seems to me to be one of the most important discoveries
> of the decade.  Yet, I've heard almost nothing on this topic since
> SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN published an article.  What is the current status
> of prions?  Has the theory been discredited or what?

Although I am not fully update on prions I've read some journal articles
other than SciAm. The theory has not been discredited, to the contrary
many people are interested in this problem. The most recent work I read
identified the protein comprising the prion as actually being a normal
cellular protein whose expression has somewhat gone haywire. The route 
of infectivity was not clear to me, but they are still working on it.

MIke Benedik
Biochemical Sciences
University of Houston