IT IS a redemption of sorts. The much maligned prion proteins that cause mad cow disease and its human counterpart, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), also play a key role preventing the progress of Alzheimer’s. In a separate development, a potential new treatment for vCJD has been developed in Japan.
“Everyone assumes the prion protein is something bad,” says Nigel Hooper of the University of Leeds, UK, who headed the team that has discovered the link to Alzheimer’s. “Now it appears it’s there for a reason.”
Prions are found in all brain cells. Trouble begins when they into abnormal…
