IT MIGHT be possible to create vaccines to prevent prion diseases such as mad cow disease and its human equivalent vCJD.
Prion diseases are caused by a misshapen form of an ordinary cell-surface protein called PrP. Immunising against the abnormal PrP should in theory prevent animals or people from developing vCJD if they eat BSE-contaminated meat. In theory, a vaccine might even be used to prevent prions reaching the brain after people have been infected, though detecting infection at this early stage is difficult.
But because PrP is one of the body’s own proteins, no one has managed to persuade…
