Download or read book Prion Biology and Diseases written by Stanley B. Prusiner and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 816 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After initial skepticism, it is now generally accepted that prions exist, that they differ from all other pathogens, and that they are infectious in several species. Prions are implicated in spongiform encephalopathies such as kuru, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and fatal familial insomnia in humans, scrapie in sheep and a bovine encephalopathy that may be transmissible to humans. Driven by prions' novelty and by concern about their public health effects, awareness of these pathogens has grown enormously, prompting an immense amount of sometimes conflicting research.