What progress is being made in treating prion diseases like mad cow and vCJD?

[hammertime]

Does anyone know what progress is being made in finding treatments for prion diseases like mad cow disease and vCJD? Or if any steps are being made in that direction? I've heard of some work at UCL regarding prions. I'd really like to be able to eat beef again.

 

[Andy Resnick]

There's a reasonably well-established link between prion diseases and amyloid proteins.

I was at a talk last year that pointed out something interesting: amyloid proteins that are misfolded into a shape that allows the assembly of plaques are more stable than 'correctly' folded proteins. In addition, a misfolded amyloid protein is able to cause a correctly folded (identical) protein to misfold to the state of lower energy.

It sounds like prion/amyloid diseases are like "Ice 9", in a literal sense.