ALBERTA: U of C lab to lead mad cow battle

18.jun.09
Calgary Herald
Tamara Gignac

CALGARY -- The University of Calgary is opening a new research facility
that will lead the country in investigating the causes of mad cow
disease and other illnesses that threaten not only elk and cattle, but
humans.
Alberta scientists will share $15 million in federal and provincial
funding with a state-of-the-art laboratory planned for the U of C's new
veterinary school.
The research will centre around prions--tiny, infectious agents that
attack the nervous system, causing animals to lose weight and waste away
until they die.
Prions are responsible for mad cow disease -- or bovine spongiform
encephalopathy (BSE) -- in cattle, scrapie in sheep and chronic wasting
disease(CWD)in mule deer and elk, as well as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
in humans.