WE MAY soon identify the genes that dictate how long it takes people to develop variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human form of mad cow disease.
Working with mice engineered to develop BSE, a team led by John Collinge at University College London has discovered regions of mouse chromosomes 2 and 11 that affect the time it takes for the mice to succumb. The race is now on to identify the specific genes in mice and see if the corresponding regions in people govern the onset of vCJD. If they do, it might become possible to screen people for susceptibility to…
