] "The finding represents a renaissance in prion biology,"
] says Nobel laureate Stanley Prusiner, also from the
] University of California, San Francisco, who contributed
] to the research. Prusiner coined the term 'prion' and was
] the first to postulate the 'protein-only' hypothesis
] about infection. "For the first time, we can create
] prions in a test tube. We now have a tool for exploring
] the mechanism by which a protein can spontaneously fold
] into a shape that causes disease."

[ At no point does this article mention that this could lead to simple mechanisms for prion synthesis... wouldn't that make it easier to make weapons out of this? Not useful for warfare, but great for terror, no? Do you have to injest or could the proteins be aerosolized? I'm not going chicken little here, but it seems like a danger worth considering. -k]

news@nature.com - Lab-made prions trigger mad cow symptoms