Molecular Casting of Infectious Amyloids, Inorganic and Organic Replication: Nucleation, Conformational Change and Self-Assembly

Kuru in New guinea, the first proven slow virus infection of man, led to the discovery of the transmittability of Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease (CJD) and of its clinical variants, Gertsmann-Strausler Schanker disease (GSS) and fatal familial insomnia (FFI). It is recognized that many diseases of animals (scrapie, transmissible mink encephalopathy, wasting diseases of mule deer and Rocky Mountain elk, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), bovine and feline spongiform encephalopathy in many exotic zoo species) are all the same disorder with similar pathogenesis.