Prion disease

1 FIRST heard of scrapie, the prototype spongiform encephalopathy also known as prion disease, at a conference at Wye College in England in 1962. J.T. Stamp, of the Moredun Institute of Edinburgh, presented data on the serial transmission and replication of the infectious agent of this chronic neurologic disease of sheep. H.B. Parry of the Nuffield Institute of Oxford then showed data on carefully studied flocks that indicated that scrapie was an inherited degenerative disease caused by a single autosomal recessive gene. Most if not all of us in the audience were bewildered. Were they studying the same disease? Now,. . .