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Baltimore VA ‘Mad Cow Disease’ Expert Develops Process to Remove Infection From Blood
Process developed by researchers to filter disease-causing prion (protein) from scrapie-infected animal blood, preventing diseases such as "Mad Cow".

Related Website: Department of Veteran Affairs Maryland

The Full Story:

(Baltimore — December 22, 2006) A Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Maryland Health Care System researcher, along fellow colleagues, has developed a process that can remove a disease-causing prion (protein) from scrapie-infected animal blood. Prion diseases, which can infect sheep, goats and cows (such as “Mad Cow Disease”) and can be transmitted to humans, are usually rapidly progressive and always fatal.

In a multi-center study, Dr. Robert Rohwer, director of the Molecular Neurovirology Laboratory at the Baltimore VA Medical Center, along with fellow researchers, screened millions of molecules to find the one that selectively binds to the prion linked to the diseases. Once identified, they developed a process to remove the prion from white blood cells.

“Just looking at the chemistry involved – my assessment from the beginning was – we’re really pushing the envelope of chemistry as we know it to make this type of measurement,” Dr. Rohwer said.

When lab animals were injected with blood cells after the suspect prion was removed, none became infected. However, when the lab animals were injected with the prion-tainted blood cells, about 15% became infected.

“From my perspective, when we started working on blood-borne infectivity it was largely because we saw it as a public health risk. Blood donation is the biggest area in which people are exposed to each others tissues,” explained Rohwer, who is also an associate professor of Neurology at the University of Maryland at Baltimore. He added that lessons learned from past experiences in the United Kingdom have demonstrated this.

“Mad Cow Disease” is perhaps the most infamous example of a prion disease because humans who eat meat from tainted cows can develop variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). So far in the United Kingdom, three people have died from vCJD after receiving blood from donors infected by the disease. Rowher and his colleagues believe that removing prion infectivity from donated blood might be one of the best ways of reducing the risk of transmission.

An article by Rohwer and his colleagues entitled “Reduction in infectivity of endogenous transmissible spongiform encephalopathies present in blood by adsorption to selective affinity resins,” will appear in the December 23-30, 2006 issue of The Lancet.
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Publish Date: 12/22/2006

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