Detecting Prions and Diagnosing Prion Diseases by Byron Caughey

"Progress in Detecting Prions and Diagnosing Prion Diseases" is lectured at the CJD foundation 2015 conference by Byron Caughey. Discussing Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) and other Prion diseases, Bryon Caughey helps shed some light on these health issues.
Byron Caughey is from the Laboratory of Persistent Viral Diseases, NIH/NIAID Rocky Mountain Laboratories, Hamilton, Montana.

Caughey discusses the progress being made to diagnose various protein misfolding diseases in living humans. Topics discussed include: prion diseases, transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, chronic wasting disease, neurodegenerative diseases, bank voles, sporadic CJD,familial CJD, scrapie, GSS, fatal familial insomnia, iatrogenic CJD,. dura mater transplant, growth hormone injections, kuru in New Guinea, protozoans, electron micrographs, brain, PrPC, Christina Orru, RT Quic, RT-quic, assay testing, Real-time quaking induced conversion, amyloid structure, Alzheimers, cerebral spinal fluid or CSF, neurosurgery, neurosurgeries, brushing of nasal mucosa, Montana, Luigi Zanusso, nasal vault, diagnostic sensitivity, specificity, sensor molecules, substrates, substrate, bank vole prion, pathological protein, BSE, Bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

0:00 - Introduction
1:12 - Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies Diseases
1:49 - Human TSE (prion) diseases
5:54 - How Prions Propagate
11:11 - Detecting Prion Diseases
17:57 - RT-QuiC tests for TSE Prions
29:58 - Diagnosing Prion Disease Conclusion
30:30 - Future Prospects of Detecting Prion Diseases

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Watch more from this conference at:
2015 CJD Foundation Family Conference Playlist: http://bit.ly/cjd-2015
Individual Presentations:
Byron Caughey - Detecting Prions: http://bit.ly/cjd-caughey
Glenn Telling - Transgenic Mouse Modeling: http://bit.ly/cjd-telling
Thomas Wisniewski - Vaccination Approaches: http://bit.ly/cjd-wisniewski
Q&A with Caughey, Telling, Wisniewski, Will: http://bit.ly/cjd-qa1
Jean-Phillipe Deslys: Human Mini-Brains: http://bit.ly/cjd-deslys
Julia Moreno: Gerstamann-Straussler Scheinker Syndrome: http://bit.ly/cjd-moreno
Chrsitina Sigurdson - Selective Cell Vulnerability: http://bit.ly/cjd-sigurdson
Q&A with Deslys, Moreno, Sigurdson, and Knight: http://bit.ly/cjd-qa2
Emiliano Biasini - Pharmacological Chaperones http://bit.ly/cjd-biasini
CJD Foundation Website: http://www.CJDFoundation.org
Subscribe: https://goo.gl/hRMXAp
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"Prion diseases are a group of rare, invariably fatal brain disorders which occur both in humans and certain animals. They first came to public attention in the mid 1980s in the form of the BSE epidemic in the United Kingdom. BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) is a prion disease in cattle. Tissue from infected animals may have contaminated cattle feed, leading to the silent spread of the BSE epidemic. There is also a theory that BSE came from feed contaminated with scrapie, the long established sheep prion disease. Inevitably, concern over whether BSE could pass to humans mounted.

In humans the best known of the prion diseases is Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), which reportedly affects around one person per million per year. In the United States this translates to 250-300 new cases per year. It is well known that CJD is very difficult to diagnose leading to speculation that the one case per million report may be incorrect. Most of the cases are "classical" or "sporadic" CJD (sCJD), occurring for no, as yet, known reason. The sporadic form accounts for approximately 85% of the cases, the familial form approximately 15%. There have also been a few cases which have occurred from contamination via medical procedures; this type is known as iatrogenic or Acquired CJD. Finally over the last few years, another type of Acquired CJD called variant (vCJD) has been identified in young people. CJD has been linked to ingestion of beef tainted with BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy), most cases have occurred in the United Kingdom."
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Information Provided by: http://www.cjdfoundation.org/about-cjd