"Prion diseases are fatal disorders in humans and animals that are characterised by degenerative changes in the brain. The current hypothesis is that they originate in the transformation of the normal cellular prion protein (PrPC), which is expressed in various cell types, into abnormal prion protein (PrPSc, from scrapie, a prion disease occurring in sheep). The exact function of the prion protein is not fully understood. Since the 1980s, the United Kingdom has been afflicted by an epidemic of a previously unrecognised prion disease in cattle, known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or “mad cow disease”), which has been detected in more than 175,000 cattle. Up until 22 January 2001, nine cattle with BSE had been identified in the Netherlands."

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