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 Thu, 18 Jun 2009 02:00:00 PDT 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 PDT 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 PDT 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 PDT 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 PDT 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 PDT 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 PDT 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 PDT 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 PDT 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 PDT 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 PDT 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 PDT 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 PDT 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 PDT 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 Tue, 17 Feb 2009 08:00:00 PDT http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/139302.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/139302.php Evidence of infection with the agent (abnormal prion protein) that causes variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) has been found at post mortem in the spleen of a person with haemophilia. The patient, who was over 70 years old, died of a condition unrelated to vCJD and had shown no symptoms of vCJD or any other neurological condition prior to his death. The vCJD abnormal prion protein was only identified during post mortem research tests. CJD / vCJD / Mad Cow Disease Thu, 12 Feb 2009 01:00:00 PDT http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/138674.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/138674.php Antibodies that stick to a brain prion protein called PrP could be the key to treating prion diseases like variant CJD and preventing people accidentally exposed to prions from going on to develop the fatal brain disease. Using a precise visualisation technique, called X-ray crystallography, scientists have identified an antibody that has the best ability to bind to PrP in the brain. Infectious Diseases / Bacteria / Viruses Fri, 16 Jan 2009 05:00:00 PDT http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/135766.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/135766.php In the rogues' gallery of microscopic infectious agents, the prion is the toughest hombre in town. Warped pathogens that lack both DNA and RNA, prions are believed to cause such fatal brain ailments as chronic wasting disease (CWD) in deer and moose, mad cow disease in cattle, scrapie in sheep and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. In addition to being perhaps the weirdest infectious agent know to science, the prion is also the most durable. CJD / vCJD / Mad Cow Disease Mon, 08 Dec 2008 05:00:00 PDT http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/132178.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/132178.php Although measures were taken to prevent further transmission to humans after the outbreak of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) from infected cattle in the mid-1990s, the full extent of this outbreak and that of other prion diseases* might not yet be realised. Prion diseases are controlled by genetic factors, and normal variations in DNA might influence susceptibility to prion diseases and affect the length of their silent incubation period. CJD / vCJD / Mad Cow Disease Mon, 08 Dec 2008 02:00:00 PDT http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/132103.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/132103.php A worldwide group of scientists has created an infectious prion disease in a mouse model, in a step that may help unravel the mystery of this progressive disease that affects the nervous system in humans and animals. The research team, including Christina J. Sigurdson, D.V.M., Ph.D. Infectious Diseases / Bacteria / Viruses Fri, 05 Dec 2008 04:00:00 PDT http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/131961.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/131961.php Researchers from the National Institutes of Health and the Scripps Research Institute have found novel prion infectivity in white and brown fat tissues of mice. The study appears December 5 in the open-access journal PLoS Pathogens. Prion diseases, also known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, are infectious progressive fatal neurodegenerative diseases which affect humans as well as wild and domestic animals. CJD / vCJD / Mad Cow Disease Sun, 30 Nov 2008 01:00:00 PDT http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/131246.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/131246.php To help prevent the establishment and amplification of Bovine Spongiform Encephalophathy (BSE) through feed in the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) implemented a final rule that prohibits the use of most mammalian protein in feeds for ruminant animals. This rule, Title 21 Part 589.2000 of the Code of Federal Regulations, here called the Ruminant Feed Ban, became effective on August 4, 1997. CJD / vCJD / Mad Cow Disease Sun, 30 Nov 2008 00:00:00 PDT http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/131091.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/131091.php A comprehensive mouse model of inherited prion disease exhibits cognitive, motor, and neurophysiological deficits that bear a striking resemblance to the symptoms experienced by patients with the human version of "mad cow disease," Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). CJD / vCJD / Mad Cow Disease Tue, 25 Nov 2008 01:00:00 PDT http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/130609.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/130609.php If you have had a hard day at work, you may change your eating habits, perhaps favoring comfort food, but you don't suddenly develop the ability to eat the plate and cutlery. Biology / Biochemistry Fri, 14 Nov 2008 02:00:00 PDT http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/129389.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/129389.php The Sixteenth Annual Report of the National Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Surveillance Unit (NCJDSU) is published today. The report looks back over the period from May 1990 (when the Unit was set up) to 31 December 2007. The report outlines the Unit's work in the clinical surveillance of variant (vCJD), sporadic and iatrogenic CJD. CJD / vCJD / Mad Cow Disease Thu, 23 Oct 2008 05:00:00 PDT http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/126574.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/126574.php Until recently the risk of developing CJD as a consequence of a blood transfusion was a theoretical concern. However, in December 2003 a patient died from vCJD after receiving a blood transfusion from a donor who subsequently also had vCJD. Since then, three further patients have been identified. One patient died of an unrelated condition, but a post mortem examination established that the abnormal form of the prion protein was present in their body. CJD / vCJD / Mad Cow Disease