The SciencesJuly 1, 2004
Detecting Mad Cow Disease
New tests can rapidly identify the presence of dangerous prions--the agents responsible for the malady--and several compounds offer hope for treatment
Stories by Stanley B. Prusiner
STANLEY B. PRUSINER is professor of neurology and biochemistry at the University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has won many awards for his research into prions, most recently the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award and the Paul Ehrlich Award. This is his second article for Scientific American.
The SciencesJanuary 1, 1995
The Prion Diseases
Prions, once dismissed as an impossibility, have now gained wide recognition as extraordinary agents that cause anumber of infectious, genetic and spontaneous disorders
HealthOctober 1, 1984
Prions
These agents of infectious disease present a biological conundrum: Prions contain protein and reproduce in the living cell, yet no DNA or RNA has been found in them. What is the nature of their genome?