Ilia V. Baskakov, PhD: Mammalian prions: from protein to disease

Ilia V. Baskakov, PhD
Associate Professor, Center for Biomedical Engineering and Technology
and Department of Anatomy & Neurobiology
University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD, USA

Mammalian prions: from protein to disease

Prion disease is a fatal, infectious, neurodegenerative malady with no established treatment. According to the protein-only hypothesis, the pathogenic or infectious agent in prion disease consists of misfolded, aggregated form of the prion protein, designated PrPSc. This seminar will discuss our recent work on the generation of transmissible prion disease de novo using recombinant prion protein amyloids. It will summarize our current knowledge about the chemical nature of the prion infectious agent, and introduces a new hypothesis on the genesis and evolution of infectious prion structures.

Host's Note: Ilia Baskakov was the first to publish, at the start of this year, the successful generation of synthetic prions that are infectious in wild-type animals, which constituted a major breakthrough in prion science.

Herbert Budka m.p.