Science Café Cleveland presents
"Prions: From Cannibalism to Mad Cows and New Mechanism of Brain Diseases"
NOVEMBER 14, 2011
FEATURING:
(Professor and Director, Division of Neuropathology, CWRU School of Medicine and University Hospitals Cleveland)
Witold Surewicz
(Professor, Department of Chemistry, CWRU )
EVENT INFORMATION:
Few diseases have generated as much interest and controversy in recent years as prion diseases, a group of diverse brain-wasting disorders that includes Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and Fatal Familial Insomnia in humans, and ‘mad cow disease’ in cattle. These diseases are transmitted or spontaneously triggered by a novel infectious pathogen, called prion. Unlike conventional pathogens such as viruses or bacteria, prions are devoid of nucleic acids and consist solely of an abnormally shaped (‘misfolded’) version of a naturally occurring prion protein. Prions replicate and spread by binding to the normal prion protein and forcing it to take on the abnormal shape. Since, theoretically the shapes that prions can adopt are infinite, so is the variety of prion diseases. Intriguingly, recent research suggests that prion-like mechanisms may be involved in a host of other human diseases.
EVENT DETAILS:
WHERE: The Market Garden Brewery
(Located at 1947 West 25th Street next to the West Side Market, Cleveland, Ohio)
WHEN: November 14, 2011
Drinks at 6:30 pm, discussion starts around 7:00 pm
WHO: Sponsored by Case Western Reserve University chapter of Sigma Xi, WCPN
ideastream, and the Market Garden Brewery
click here to download .pdf flyer
