Prana Biotechnology Co-Founding Scientist Appointed Executive Director of the Mental Health Research Institute of Victoria.
- Laureate Professor Colin Masters to Assume New Role Effective January 1, 2007 - MELBOURNE, Australia, Dec. 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Laureate Professor Colin Masters, M.D., Ph.D., co-founding scientist of Prana Biotechnology Limited , has been named the new Executive Director of the Mental Health Research Institute of...

Prana Biotechnology Co-Founding Scientist Receives Grand Hamdan International Award for Medical Sciences.
- Professor Colin Masters Honored for His Work in the Field of Molecular and Cellular Pathology of Neurological Disorders - MELBOURNE, Australia, Dec. 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Professor Colin Masters, M.D., Ph.D., co-founding scientist of Prana Biotechnology Limited , received the Grand Hamdan International Award for Medical Sciences...

Mad cow and other maladies: update on emerging infectious diseases.
Lately, several emerging infectious diseases have had a great deal of play in the media, resulting in anxiety among health care workers and their patients. This article explores the epidemiology and clinical characteristics of some of these emerging infections. BOVINE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHY AND VARIANT CREUTZFELDT-JAKOB DISEASE ...

70 New strains of mad cow materialize.
MEDICINE--Two new strains of mad cow disease, the brain-destroying killer linked to rogue proteins known as prions, turned up this year in Europe. Even more worrisome, the molecular signature of one new strain resembles a deadly human neurological disease, sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob, leading to speculation that the new form of...

The Family That Couldn't Sleep: A Medical Mystery.
THE FAMILY THAT COULDN'T SLEEP: A Medical Mystery DANIEL T. MAX In 2001, Max attended a reunion for an Italian family that for 200 years had been afflicted with a mysterious and devastating disease. The symptoms are horrific: The afflicted, upon reaching middle age, suddenly find themselves...

A brief history of dietary madness.
1986--The first case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) is confirmed in the United Kingdom. July 1988--Britain bans all cattle feed that contains parts of other cows. The destruction of BSE-infected-cattle begins. 1990--British Agriculture Minister John Gummer appears on television and urges his five-year-old daughter to...

Hunter beware: infectious proteins found in deer muscle.
Infectious agents called prions that cause a mad cow-like disease in deer and elk are present in the infected animals' muscles, according to a new study. Prions had been shown to congregate primarily in the brains and spinal cords of infected animals, so the finding could increase concern among...

The cow jumped over the moon.
Byline: Pothik Ghosh The world of third Millennium is a cow-eat-man world. And even our 'cutting-edge', 'objective' scientific discourse can no longer claim to be free from the germ of millenarian weirdness. A paper, published recently in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet, claimed with great...

Man and beast both at risk.
The arrival of autumn does not lessen the threat from West Nile virus or other zoonotic illnesses--diseases that can affect people and animals--but scientists from Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind., say most are avoidable and treatable. "Zoonotic diseases run the whole gamut of types of organisms," points...

Picturing prions.
Working independently, three teams of researchers have developed a clear picture of the structure and mechanism of the misshapen, threadlike proteins--called prions in their infectious form--that are the hallmarks of mad cow disease, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and 19 other brain-wasting diseases. Scientists have long suspected that something about...