CELLS infected with scrapie have been “cured” using antibodies. Although the
treatment has so far only been tried on cells grown in the lab, it provides a
glimmer of hope that there may one day be a way to treat people with vCJD, the
human equivalent of scrapie and mad cow disease. So far, 100 people have died of
vCJD, and epidemiologists have warned that thousands more could yet succumb.
Charles Weissmann and his colleagues in the British Medical Research
Council’s Prion Unit at St Mary’s Hospital, London, grew mouse cells in the lab
then infected them with a form…
