Tale can be found at Science Magazine.
PARIS—Five public research institutions in France have imposed a 3-month moratorium on the study of prions—a class of misfolding, infectious proteins that cause fatal brain diseases—after a retired lab worker who handled prions in the past was diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), the most common prion disease in humans. An investigation is underway to find out whether the patient, who worked at a lab run by the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE), contracted the disease on the job.
If so, it would be the second such case in France in the past few years. In June 2019, an INRAE lab worker named Émilie Jaumain died at age 33, 10 years after pricking her thumb during an experiment with prion-infected mice. Her family is now suing INRAE for manslaughter and endangering life; her illness had already led to tightened safety measures at French prion labs.
The aim of the moratorium, which affects nine labs, is to "study the possibility of a link with the [new patient's] former professional activity and if necessary to adapt the preventative measures in force in research laboratories," according to a joint press release issued by the five institutions yesterday.
Prion and Creutzfeldt–Jakob_disease entries on Wikipedia.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 29 2021, @10:31AM (7 children)
You couldn't stop them with a mask if they were airborne. Fortunately they're molecules that tend to be locked up in the neural tissues of animals; but I've heard they have to be cooked at very high temperatures to be destroyed which is why the beef supply in the UK was not safe.
The real nightmare is that if they were weaponized you could just breathe in a few without even knowing it. Then the target protein in your body gets the idea to fold the wrong way, and a few years later you die a horrible death.
They definitely need to figure out how this guy got that in his system before starting up again, and I hope they're handling this nastiness in such a way that you could never come in to contact with a single molecule.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 29 2021, @10:56AM (1 child)
Prions are amyloids, i.e an aggregate of beta-pleated sheets. If a protein doesn't fold properly that is what you get since it is the lowest energy conformation. These beta-sheets can also catalyze the folding of other proteins into beta-sheets.
There is nothing mysterious about it, prions are ubiquitous. You have trillions inside you right now, the problem is when you are ill so your body fails to "take out the trash".
A seed is necessary but insufficient to form a plant. Without fertile soil, sunlight, appropriate temperature/pressure, and water the seed can't do anything.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 29 2021, @11:41AM
>> Without fertile soil, sunlight, appropriate temperature/pressure, and water the seed can't do anything.
You've never been hit on the head with a coconut.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by canopic jug on Thursday July 29 2021, @10:59AM (3 children)
Cooking would be the wrong term for the amount of heat required to disturb a prion's stuctural integrity. They are far and beyond tougher than the proteins that make up meat.
The articles on the incident in France cover several layers of mistakes that allowed the woman to get infected.
As for nightmare fuel, consider meat production in the US. Animals are ground up and fed back into other animals. At some point, some day, prions will get into that feedback loop and by the time the symptoms show up in people quite a few years will have gone by and the prions will be wide spread.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 29 2021, @02:33PM (2 children)
and so lazy wolves going for the deer that's going in circles died out ... ofc not.
just saying that prion disease is "natural" and can affect deers and elks, which is like the premium super meal for wolves ... and they seems to know how to eat around the infected bits ...ofc not. just saying the solution to "prion problem" might be either feeding them infected ones to wolves (ofc not since we don't know if they poop them out again) or finding that digestive enzyme (or protective enzyme?) that can cleave prions? then again this might again lead to the resurrection of the "cannibal cow industry" since the wolve enzyme would be added to the "surplus cow" (the stuff thats left over after slaghter and nobody wants), mixed, shacken, stirred and then poured into the feeding trench of the next generation of cows *sigh*.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 31 2021, @02:31PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 31 2021, @02:33PM
Dogs are resistant to prion infection, due to the presence of aspartic or glutamic acid at position 163 of their prion protein:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31944411/ [nih.gov]
So wolves probably too?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday July 29 2021, @04:02PM
Seems like there's a movie plot somewhere in there begging to be released.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 29 2021, @11:44AM (2 children)
There are French people... they eat frogs and snails. The Chinamen in Wuhan ate pangolins. Just sayin'
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday July 29 2021, @04:14PM (1 child)
And Americans eat swine. [cdc.gov]
Do you call H1N1 the 'America Virus?'
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 31 2021, @04:36AM
Have you ever considered that, maybe you oughta?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday July 29 2021, @03:13PM
France Issues Moratorium on Prion Research
I read that title and for a moment thought it said Pr0n research.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 29 2021, @05:25PM (1 child)
Supposedly there was going to be a tidal wave of CJD cases in the UK since we were all eating infected beef for a while. It's been 20+ years and it didn't happen. Or is it Still Coming(tm) and we need to fund more research?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 30 2021, @07:02AM
There has been a wave of cases in the UK and the seroprevalence/appendix samples in UK individuals is higher than the rest of the world. The UK makes up around 80% of known cases even today and there is evidence that they underdiagnose the condition (because it appears more phenotypes are also vulnerable). In addition, people are known to remain asymptomatic for up to 50 years and many are likely to meet their maker long before that time passes. Just because you didn't see it, doesn't mean it didn't/isn't happening.