CJD — Worldwide/Unknown
The 1st new human prion in almost 50 years has been discovered, a team of scientists report. The prion is called alpha-synuclein and it is believed to be the causative agent for a rare neurodegenerative disease in people.
Prions are types of protein that fold in unusual and complex ways. Some prions are, due to the way they are folded, able to replicate by instructing other proteins to misfold in the same way. The way that a prion replicates is similar to the way that a virus replicates and
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