March 29, 1996. Copyright, 1996, Graphic News. All rights reserved

SCIENTISTS WORKING ON BSE TEST IN LIVING ANIMALS 
By Laura Spinney, Science Editor

LONDON, March 29, Graphic News- A method of diagnosing BSE and CJD in animals and humans while they are still alive could soon be approved, say American scientists who have been working in collaboration with the British government.
The causes of BSE and CJD are still unknown. The only lead that scientists have is that the symptoms Ð dementia and loss of balance, for example Ð are related to the death of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. That loss of cells, which is what gives the diseased brain its spongy quality, is in turn related to the build up of abnormal prions, or protein molecules, in the membranes of those cells. But which is cause and which is effect remains a mystery. 
 At the moment, doctors can only diagnose BSE and CJD at post mortem, when they are able to identify the abnormal protein. But a team of neurologists led by Dr Jo Gibbs, deputy chief of the Laboratory of Central Nervous System Studies at the U.S. National Institute of Health in Maryland, are now experimenting with a diagnostic tool that could identify the disease in living people and animals. Although Gibbs cannot discuss the details of the test until his experiments are complete, he says he has tested material from infected British cattle.
The victims of the latest outbreak of CJD could have developed the disease through eating the meat of an infected animal, or as the result of a mutation in their own genes causing them to produce the abnormal prions themselves. ÔThis is the only disease we know that can be both inherited and transmitted,Õ says Gareth Roberts, head of molecular neuropathology at the drug company SmithKline Beecham, in Harlow.  Since the disease spreads by more than one route, a test that identifies it in living animals and humans could prove invaluable.

Sources: Institute of Animal Health, U.S. National Institute of Health, SmithKline Beecham