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| Monday, 29 August 2005 11:53 | | BNN: British Nursing News Online · www.bnn-online.co.uk
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Scientists are close to developing a blood test for the human form of mad cow disease which will help to ensure that it is not transmitted by blood transplants.
There is currently no effective way of detecting BSE or vCJD in the blood but researchers from the University of Texas have said they can now identify prions (blood proteins) carrying the infection using a new technique.
Professor Claudio Soto, who led the University of Texas team, said: “The concentration of infectious prion protein in blood is far too small to be detected by the methods used to detect it in the brain, but we know it’s still enough to spread the disease.
“The key to our success was developing a technique using sound waves that would amplify the quantity of this protein a million fold, raising it to a detectable level.”
The scientists used the technique, known as protein misfolding cyclic amplification, to detect prions in 16 out of 18 infected hamsters.
Prof Soto said: “The next step will be detecting prions in the blood of animals before they detect clinical symptoms and applying technology to human blood samples.”
Cases of BSE in British cattle have been declining since 1992 but scientists believe that millions of people could have been infected by the disease, which has an incubation period of up to 40 years, during the epidemic of the 1980s.
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