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Blood screening detects brain-wasting disease

MONTREAL - A Canadian biopharmaceutical company says it has developed a process to screen blood donations for prions, the infectious proteins associated with brain-wasting Creutzfeldt Jacob disease.

Prions are misfolded or abnormal proteins that attack the central nervous system and then invade the brain in the same way as variant CJD, the human form of BSE or mad cow disease.

Two people in Britain are known to have come down with vCJD through blood transfusions.

Canada's blood supply is currently screened for viruses such as HIV, Hepatitis C and West Nile, but there's no way to screen for the prions that cause vCJD.

Prometic, a biotechnology firm based in Montreal and London, England says it's coming out with a filter for prions in human blood. One drawback is the cost of manufacturing the special blood bags needed for the screening.

The company has developed a chemical filter that binds to prions in bags of donated blood, highlighting any residues, said Claude Camire, the vice-president of Prometic.

"[Prions] have a specific structure, which we have identified," said Camire.

For the screening to work, a chemical filter has to be inserted into the membrane of blood bags during manufacturing, doubling the cost from about $25 US to $50 US. Canada needs about one million bags per year for blood donations.

"Countries will weigh the benefit of using the technology against doing it or not doing it and how many people will die," said Camire. "I think that's an ethical issue we go through with a number of biotech products."

Next year, the company plans to market its technology in Europe, where 140 people have died of vCJD. So far, there has been one death from the disease in Canada.

[original article]

Posted by thinkum at August 17, 2004 03:42 PM