Scientists at Northwestern University and University of California, Santa Barbara have created the first synthetic fragment ...

Prions are best described as misfolded proteins with an ability to transmit their misfolded shape onto normal variants of the same protein. Let's dive into the many fatal neurodegenerative diseases ...

Mammalian prions are notoriously difficult as structural biology subjects, given their insolubility and tendency to aggregate. Researchers have now overcome these challenges to figure out the ...

Do "prions" exist? The word "prion" is used in ... There is a change in the conformation (or shape) of PrP in the abnormal form, and there seem to be some differences in the conformations found ...

Nevertheless, some maintain that the mechanism by which prions change their shape and aggregate might be put to good use in biological systems. In back-to-back papers in the December 26 issue of Cell, ...

In May of 2024, Mayo Clinic launched a new prion test, RT-QuIC Prion, CSF, which can distinguish prion disease from other causes of rapidly progressive dementia—particularly autoimmune forms of ...

The ‘Molecular Devils’ That Cause the Most Fatal Diseases Ever Known CJD and similar brain diseases are caused by a misfolded version of the naturally occurring prion protein. When these rogue ...

May 17, 2024 — A new study of prion diseases, using a human cerebral organoid model, suggests there is a substantial species barrier preventing transmission of chronic wasting disease (CWD ...