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BSE Test- From Cattlenetwork

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Anonymous

Guest
Today 7/31/2006 6:11:00 PM


Canadian Co Sees New BSE Test Available Within 2 Years

WINNIPEG (Dow Jones)--An Edmonton-based company is hoping to have a new, inexpensive test for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, on the market within the next two years.

Ron Arnold, of BSE Prion Solutions, says the urine test will be able to detect BSE as well as other prion diseases such as chronic wasting disease (CWD) in deer and elk, scrapie in sheep, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) and Alzheimer's disease in humans.

He explained that the test will detect prions as well as the precursor prions, which, when found, indicates a susceptibility to BSE. "If everything goes well, it could be less than two years until the test is available," Arnold said. "It depends on how fast the data is accumulated."

Arnold, who owns exclusive rights to the patent and product for the Americas and Europe, says he and U.K.-based parent company Biotech Global sent the test protocol to Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland almost three years ago. Currently, he said, the test is in the final stages of development at the university.

"Initially when this test was developed, it didn't work beyond 60% to 75% of the time," Arnold said. "So, under contract to Biotech Global, Case Western University further developed the test. They completely stripped it down, analyzed it, tweaked it and came up with all of the keys necessary to make it work 100% of the time." He said all that is required to detect prions using the test is one millimeter of urine.

"Subsequent to Case Western's finding that everything is as it should be in our mind, it will then be presented to the OIE (World Organisation for Animal Health) in Paris for approval," he said.

"We hope it will be the gold standard in testing live animals for BSE, and for testing humans for prion disease." Arnold said that he partnered up with Biotech Global shortly after the BSE crisis hit in 2003.

"It hit us hard, having to watch farmers and ranchers seeing their entire herd being slaughtered," Arnold said, "only to find that the brain tissue was okay, that there was no BSE anywhere to be found in any of the other 200 or 300 animals that CFIA slaughtered to test." He said the test would cost roughly C$10 per animal and no animals would have to be slaughtered.

"If we can show through routine testing that every animal in Canada can be tested - and there's no reason it can't be - it will enhance risk management, food safety, consumer confidence and the marketability of the product," he said.
 

Mike

Well-known member
Many people have been able to detect prions in urine. If I remember correctly, Ruth Gabizon? in Israel found PrPsc in urine in 2000?

Science 14 October 2005:
Vol. 310. no. 5746, pp. 324 - 326
DOI: 10.1126/science.1118829
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Reports
Coincident Scrapie Infection and Nephritis Lead to Urinary Prion Excretion
Harald Seeger,1* Mathias Heikenwalder,1* Nicolas Zeller,1 Jan Kranich,1 Petra Schwarz,1 Ariana Gaspert,2 Burkhardt Seifert,3 Gino Miele,1 Adriano Aguzzi1

Prion infectivity is typically restricted to the central nervous and lymphatic systems of infected hosts, but chronic inflammation can expand the distribution of prions. We tested whether chronic inflammatory kidney disorders would trigger excretion of prion infectivity into urine. Urinary proteins from scrapie-infected mice with lymphocytic nephritis induced scrapie upon inoculation into noninfected indicator mice. Prionuria was found in presymptomatic scrapie-infected and in sick mice, whereas neither prionuria nor urinary PrPSc was detectable in prion-infected wild-type or PrPC-overexpressing mice, or in nephritic mice inoculated with noninfectious brain. Thus, urine may provide a vector for horizontal prion transmission, and inflammation of excretory organs may influence prion spread.

1 Institute of Neuropathology, University Hospital of Zürich, Schmelzbergstrasse 12, CH-8091 Zürich, Switzerland.
2 Institute of Clinical Pathology, University Hospital of Zürich, Schmelzbergstrasse 12, CH-8091 Zürich, Switzerland.
3 Institute of Biostatistics, University of Zürich, Sumatrastrasse 30, CH-8006 Zürich, Switzerland.

*
 

bse-tester

Well-known member
Mike you are absolutely correct with resepct to Gabizon. Having said that, she developed a protocol that nobody could replicate and subsequently her methodology was rejected due to it not being repeatable by any other lab. However, she came very very close. Haddassa University, where she is in Israel, is doing some really worthwhile work in the field of prion research.

Adriano Aguzzi in Switzerland is also doing some incredible research into prion diseases. Not so very long agao, Aguzzi wrote to me and indicated that our test was still somewhat premature. That was before we found the right antibody.
 

bse-tester

Well-known member
Hey OT, how is the weather in Montana? I am heading to Missoula on Wednesday to visit the wife - she has been there for a month or so visiting friends.
 
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Anonymous

Guest
bse-tester said:
Hey OT, how is the weather in Montana? I am heading to Missoula on Wednesday to visit the wife - she has been there for a month or so visiting friends.

Starting yesterday it cooled down drastically - highs in the 70's and 80's...Supposed to be cool all week- and then heat up again next week- altho I don't know if the ridging and heat will get to Missoula...

I haven't been there for several years, since I moved #2 daughter back from college- whole country over there is way too crowded for me...

Looks like if nothing else, you been able to get some peoples attention about your test...
 

bse-tester

Well-known member
I guess a few folks have noticed it. I simply responded to a few reporters calls and told tham what we had. Now we will virtually disappear from the limelight while we validate it. That will mean we will be virtually silent for the next two years. But I will still lurk on this board. Headig down to Monatan tomorrow, early. Passing through Browning and then on to Missoula.:D :D
 
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