Copyright 2009 Medical News Today Latest CJD / vCJD / Mad Cow Disease News From Medical News Today. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/sections/cjd-vcjd/ admin@medicalnewstoday.com (MNT Admin) editors@medicalnewstoday.com (MNT Editors) en-us Mon, 23 Nov 2009 03:00:00 PST http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/171854.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/171854.php ProMetic Life Sciences Inc. (TSX:PLI) ("ProMetic") and MacoPharma SA ("MacoPharma") announce that the Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs ("SaBTO"), an independent Committee that advises the UK Department of Health ("DoH"), has recommended the adoption of the P-Capt® prion reduction filter to pre-treat red blood cells destined for children born since 1 January 1996. CJD / vCJD / Mad Cow Disease Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:00:00 PST http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/171751.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/171751.php A new treatment route for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and its human form Creutzfeldt Jakob disease (CJD) could be a step closer based on new results from scientists at the University of Leeds. The team has found that a protein called Glypican-1 plays a key role in the development of BSE. Details are published November 20 in the open-access journal PLoS Pathogens. CJD / vCJD / Mad Cow Disease Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:00:00 PST http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/171698.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/171698.php New research funded mainly through the Wellcome Trust with additional support from the Medical Research Council shows that a new treatment route for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and its human form Creutzfeldt Jakob disease (CJD) could be a step closer. The research carried out by scientists at the University of Leeds was published today (November 20) in PLoS Pathogens. CJD / vCJD / Mad Cow Disease Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:00:00 PST http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/171697.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/171697.php A community in Papua New Guinea that suffered a major epidemic of a CJD-like fatal brain disease called kuru has developed strong genetic resistance to the disease, according to new research by Medical Research Council (MRC) scientists. Kuru is a fatal prion disease, similar to CJD in humans and BSE in animals, and is geographically unique to an area in Papua New Guinea. CJD / vCJD / Mad Cow Disease Thu, 19 Nov 2009 05:00:00 PST http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/171524.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/171524.php Prions are causing fatal and infectious diseases of the nervous system, such as the mad cow disease (BSE), scrapie in sheep or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. Scientists of Helmholtz Zentrum München and Technische Universität München have now succeeded in elucidating another disease mechanism of prion diseases: The prion-infected cell changes its gene expression and produces increased quantities of cholesterol. Prions need this for their propagation. Neurology / Neuroscience Thu, 15 Oct 2009 04:00:00 PST http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/167453.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/167453.php Specific cells within the immune system could help explain why younger people are more susceptible to variant CJD, scientists believe. Patients diagnosed with variant CJD are, on average, 28 years old but it has been unclear why older people are not as affected by the disease. CJD / vCJD / Mad Cow Disease Tue, 06 Oct 2009 01:00:00 PST http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/166264.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/166264.php A collaboration between scientists at Vanderbilt University and the University of California, San Francisco has led to the first direct information about the molecular structure of prions. In addition, the study has revealed surprisingly large structural differences between natural prions and the closest synthetic analogs that scientists have created in the lab. CJD / vCJD / Mad Cow Disease Thu, 27 Aug 2009 03:00:00 PST http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/162069.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/162069.php For the first time, Whitehead Institute researchers have shown definitively that mutations associated with prion diseases are sufficient to cause a transmissible neurodegenerative disease. The discovery is reported in the August 27 edition of the journal Neuron. Until now, two theories about the role mutations play in prion diseases have been at odds. According to one theory, mutations make carriers more susceptible to prions in the environment. CJD / vCJD / Mad Cow Disease Tue, 25 Aug 2009 00:00:00 PST http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/161655.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/161655.php A new study shows that nervous system integrity and axonal properties may play a key role in prion diseases. The findings, from researchers at the Rudolf Virchow Center and the Institute of Virology of the University of Würzburg, expand our understanding of the development of prion disease and suggest novel targets for therapeutic and diagnostic approaches in its early stages. Details are published August 21 in the open-access journal PLoS Pathogens. CJD / vCJD / Mad Cow Disease Wed, 19 Aug 2009 02:00:00 PST http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/161140.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/161140.php According to BBC News, coroners in England and Wales are reluctant to carry out tests for vCJD because it is outside their scope of their job and might undermine their neutrality, despite pleas from scientists and the government that this might be the only effective way to determine how many people might be infected. CJD / vCJD / Mad Cow Disease Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:00:00 PST http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/157012.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/157012.php EFSA's Panel on Animal Health and Welfare (AHAW) has published five scientific opinions and a scientific report on the overall effects of the most relevant farming systems on the welfare of dairy cows and related diseases. The Panel concluded that long term genetic selection for higher milk yield and the nature of the farming systems used - i.e. housing and equipment, as well as management and handling practices - are major factors affecting the health and welfare of dairy cows. CJD / vCJD / Mad Cow Disease Thu, 18 Jun 2009 02:00:00 PST http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/154357.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/154357.php University of Louisville neurologist Robert P. Friedland, M.D., questions the safety of eating farmed fish in the June issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, adding a new worry to concerns about the nation's food supply. Friedland and his co-authors suggest farmed fish could transmit Creutzfeldt Jakob disease--commonly known as mad cow disease--if they are fed byproducts rendered from cows. Nutrition / Diet Fri, 22 May 2009 05:00:00 PST http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/151140.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/151140.php First results from a large tissue survey in Britain of the agent that causes variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) are unable so far to establish that the prevalence is lower than that given by previous estimates, concludes a study published on bmj.com today. CJD / vCJD / Mad Cow Disease Sat, 25 Apr 2009 00:00:00 PST http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/147417.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/147417.php The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Institutes of Health have announced that an international consortium of researchers has published the genome of domestic cattle, the first livestock mammal to have its genetic blueprint sequenced and analyzed. The landmark research will bolster efforts to produce better beef and dairy products and lead to a better understanding of the human genome. Genetics Fri, 03 Apr 2009 07:00:00 PST http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/144906.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/144906.php Whitehead Institute researchers have quintupled the number of identifiable prion proteins in yeast and have further clarified the role prions play in the inheritance of both beneficial and detrimental traits. Infectious Diseases / Bacteria / Viruses Mon, 16 Mar 2009 06:00:00 PST http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/142404.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/142404.php Imbalance of iron homeostasis is a common feature of prion disease-affected human, mouse, and hamster brains, according to a new study by Dr. Neena Singh and colleagues at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, alongside collaborators from Creighton University. CJD / vCJD / Mad Cow Disease Mon, 16 Mar 2009 00:00:00 PST http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/142324.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/142324.php The discovery in common brewer's yeast of a new, infectious, misfolded protein -- or prion -- by University of Illinois at Chicago molecular biologists raises new questions about the roles played by these curious molecules, often associated with degenerative brain diseases like "mad cow" and its human counterpart, Creutzfeldt-Jakob. Infectious Diseases / Bacteria / Viruses Thu, 12 Mar 2009 01:00:00 PST http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/141915.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/141915.php HemoBioTech (OTCBB:HMBT) announced that their orthogonal (ORTH) technology showed to be extremely effective in elimination of prion proteins that cause mad cow disease (BSE) and a similar disease in humans (vCJD/CJD). The ORTH technology removed prion proteins at a rate of 10 -10 from biological fluids used to make specific pharmaceutical products. CJD / vCJD / Mad Cow Disease Thu, 12 Mar 2009 01:00:00 PST http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/141926.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/141926.php Chronix Biomedical - developing and applying proprietary techniques to detect and analyze circulating nucleic acid sequences for the diagnosis and management of disease - reported that three recent studies published in peer-reviewed journals have further confirmed the potential diagnostic and prognostic utility of fragments of DNA and RNA that circulate in the blood, known as circulating nucleic acids (CNAs). Cancer / Oncology Tue, 10 Mar 2009 05:00:00 PST http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/141704.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/141704.php For over twenty years, scientists have known that a normal protein in the brain, PrP, or prion protein, can turn harmful and cause deadly illnesses like Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in humans, and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in cattle. What they could not explain is why large amounts of this normal protein are produced by our bodies in the first place. CJD / vCJD / Mad Cow Disease Tue, 10 Mar 2009 03:00:00 PST http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/141660.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/141660.php The drug quinacrine does not increase survival in patients with prion disease. The results of the first major prospective study of a treatment for human prion disease in the UK are published in an Article early Online and in the April edition of The Lancet Neurology. Human prion diseases, such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), can arise spontaneously, be inherited through a genetic mutation, or develop through infectious transmission. CJD / vCJD / Mad Cow Disease Fri, 06 Mar 2009 00:00:00 PST http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/141267.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/141267.php Scientists at the University of Liverpool have determined the atomic structure of the 'binding' between a brain protein and an antibody that could be key to treating patients with diseases such as variant CJD. Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) is part of a family of rare progressive neurodegenerative disorders, called prion diseases, which affect both animals and humans. CJD / vCJD / Mad Cow Disease Thu, 26 Feb 2009 06:00:00 PST http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/140419.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/140419.php Yale researchers have filled in a missing gap on the molecular road map of Alzheimer's disease. In the Feb. 26 issue of the journal Nature, the Yale team reports that cellular prion proteins trigger the process by which amyloid-beta peptides block brain function in Alzheimer's patients. "It has been a black box," said Stephen M. Alzheimer's / Dementia Wed, 18 Feb 2009 04:00:00 PST http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/139391.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/139391.php Following the first confirmed case of a person with haemophilia being infected with vCJD through their NHS treatment, the Haemophilia Society is demanding that the Government takes swift action to offer counselling to potential victims, and to protect the blood supply. Blood / Hematology Tue, 17 Feb 2009 11:00:00 PST http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/139318.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/139318.php The UK's Health Protection Agency said earlier today, 17 February, that a post mortem on a patient with haemophilia had found evidence in his spleen of abnormal prion protein that causes variant CJD (vCJD) but it did not kill him: he died with rather than from the disease which is commonly called mad cow disease. The post-mortem is part of an ongoing study by the UK Haemophilia Centre Doctors Organisation and the National CJD Surveillance Unit that started in 2001. CJD / vCJD / Mad Cow Disease