PRIONS Prions have been a mistery for scientists from the day they where discovered. Prions act like viruses but they are not. Their structure and chemistry are unknown. They are believed to be proteins but that is yet to be completely proved. Prion stands for “proteinaceous infectious particles”. Prions are known to cause many diseases involved with nervous systems like the brain. They are the ones that cause the well known “ mad cow ” disesase in …showed first 75 words of 1720 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1720 total…stops the transmission of the Creutzfeldt-Jakob prion, but many other diseases may be cured in the future, including Alzheimer’s disease, which affects a great part of population, if it is related to it. As Stanly B. Prusiner said:     “If the prion is indeed a single protein and the product of a gene native to the host organism, the time may have come for a reconsideration of what is meant by the concept of infection.