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This second, completely revised and extended edition of Prions: A Challenge for Science, Medicine and the Public Health System is a comprehensive, up-to-date review of prions and prion-associated diseases. Leading scientists discuss the structure, molecular biology and origin of prions as well as strain variations and species barriers. Human prion diseases, prion inactivation and risks to public health are considered in detail. The new edition provides an update on basic findings of the last three years since publication of the previous edition and emphasizes practical aspects of fighting human and animal prion diseases. In addition, chapters on regulatory aspects of BSE and CJD as well as on veterinary measures have been included. A valuable single source of information on what is currently known about prions, this book will be of interest to any scientist or clinician who wants to keep up with the latest developments in this fast-moving field.

In the past decades, the public has been forced to revise its perception of the apparent triumph of modern hygiene and medical microbiology over infectious diseases. Not only have older infections reemerged but new epidemics, like AIDS, have lead to public uncertainty. With the onset of the bovine spongiform encephalopathy epidemic in Great Britain, novel infectious agents came into the public spotlight, ones that do not cause classical inflammation but a slow and irreversible degeneration of the central nervous system. Sensational from a scientific point of view, these agents, called proteinaceous infectious organisms or prions, were shown to be self-replicating without nucleic acid sequences to encode genomic information. In this volume, leading scientists deal with the medical, scientific and public health questions that prion infections raise. Besides the'prion or virus'discussion, the structures of prions and their molecular biological analysis as well as the questions of strain variations and species barrier are presented. The etiological, clinical and diagnostic aspects of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies are given special attention. The epidemiology of human and animal prion diseases, disease management and possibilities for inactivation of prions are discussed from a public health perspective. Directed at scientists, physicians and the public health sector, the monograph uses a multidisciplinary approach to present the latest findings on prion infection.