BLOOD tests could soon pick up the human form of mad cow disease—before
any symptoms appear. Two groups of researchers have developed separate ways to
detect low levels of the prion which causes variant CJD. The startling advances
could also lead to animal tests for BSE and scrapie and ways to screen blood
donated for transfusions.
Small amounts of the prion that causes vCJD are thought to circulate in the
blood, but current tests cannot detect it.
Now Claudio Soto and his colleagues from the Serono Pharmaceutical Research
Institute in Geneva have found a way to …