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Equipment & Techniques
Prion diseases, or transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, are infectious, fatal, neurodegenerative conditions of humans and animal species including scrapie in sheep, bovine spongiform encephalopathy in cattle and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. Our current research focus is: (a) prion strain analysis at the molecular and biochemical level (b) determination of the sensitivity of cervid PrP transgenic Drosophila to prion infectivity (c) determination of the sensitivity of human PrP transgenic Drosophila to prion infectivity (d) the reduction and replacement of mammals in bioassays We are interested in prion disease pathogenesis, transmission and therapeutic strategy including defining the nature of the infectious agent, determining the molecular basis of prion strain diversity, and understanding the conversion of PrPC into PrPSc, An exciting new area of our research is the generation of an invertebrate model of mammalian prion disease utilising Drosophila transgenic for either cervid or human PrP.