The Prion Research Paper

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Dr. Stanley Prusiner, M.D. discovered the prion, and was the one who coined the name. He won a Nobel Prize for it in 1997. Prion comes from the words protein infection, or PrP for short. When the prion protein misconfigures, diseases with the brain occur, called Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE). The work done by Prusiner showed that prions lack a nucleic acid sequence, which was and still is hugely unknown. It is important to understand and research prions because little is known about them and when the diseases occur, they are deadly and contagious. (Prusiner, 1982) A prion is a protein in the body, normally in the nerve cells, that everyone has. It is known that the prion gene is on the 20th chromosome and is called the prion …show more content…
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Computerized Tomography Scan (CT scan), or Cerebrospinal Fluid (CSF) Extraction are just a few tests. When viewed in a MRI or CT the brain looks like there are black or white areas all over it. The black and white areas are the dead neuron tissue from the clumping of the prion proteins. There has been some recent research in the detection of certain prion linked diseases early in the symptoms, which will be discussed later in the paper. There are many diseases being found to link to prion misconfiguration, such as Mad Cow disease, Scrapie’s, Kuru disease, and Creutzfeldt - Jakob disease. In the following paper, the research on the recognition of different prion diseases will be discussed along with the discovery of certain types of prion disease. Due to the many advancements in medical technology, there is more known about how the diseases spread and begin. Prions cause an infection that is not only fatal but contagious. There are many different types of prion diseases, but more and more neurodegenerative diseases are being linked to the prion protein. With the advancement in technology, it has made it even easier to recognize the …show more content…
(Atkins, Townsend, Medlock, & Galvani, 2013) The last disease to be discussed is Chronic Wasting Disease. Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is prion disease of deer and animals in the deer family of the United States. The disease was first only in Wyoming and Colorado, but recently it has spread to all of the mainland states. (Perrott, Sigurdson, Masons, & Hoover, 2013) CWD has been found to be able to infect cattle, goats, and sheep, but unlike BSE and Scrapie it has yet to be introduced naturally to other species. CWD effects both free-ranging and farmed cervids. CWD is very similar to Scrapie, but not as similar to BSE. Eradication of the disease from the farmed cervids is key, and then the eradication of the free-range will take care of itself. (Sigurdson, 2008) The next topic to be discussed is the recognition of the different prion diseases. Brain and tonsil biopsies, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), and Computerized Tomography (CT) Scans used to be the only way to see the effects and determine that an individual has a prion disease. These detections normally came postmortem, which is a huge reason to find new and easy ways to recognize the diseases.
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