Prion Poison Prevention

As it happens, there is a group of diseases that have many names (scrapie in sheep, Mad Cow Disease in cattle, etc.), but a couple common features. They all gradually disable and eventually kill by causing a unique deterioration of brain tissue, creating hordes of tiny holes, such that the overall appearance becomes sponge-like. They all are caused by a rogue protein, which has the generic label of "prion". This protein is a natural thing that comes in two forms. One form is needed by the body; the other -- same protein, different SHAPE -- is devastating. It can somehow catalyze the needed form to switch to the bad form. That means there is more of the bad form present to cause still more catalysis of the needed form...until death occurs. Do note that this is not any sort of ordinary disease; it is more like a slowly accumulating poison.

Worse, prion proteins are tough. They can be ingested orally, survive the digestive process, enter the bloodstream, cross the blood-brain barrier, and go to work doing their devastation. More, they can also cross BACK through the brain-blood barrier, exit the body along with urine and feces, and contaminate plants that might be eaten, years later!, by other animals. I've just finished reading an article in a very recent SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, and am now convinced that prions pose as much a long-term and insidious threat to humanity as any other disease in history. Prions can survive cooking, and even autoclaving! We are GOING to have to deal with them, so we might as well get started brainstorming -- before we don't have the brainpower any more to raise so much as a squall!

Here is my suggestion. The weakness of prions is that they ARE proteins, and all proteins are assembled by various biological processes. This means that other biological processes can disassemble them. The key tools that biology uses, to build/demolish proteins, are specialized compounds known as "enzymes". Often they are proteins, too. All enzymes are catalysts, enabling various bio-reactions to take place much faster than would happen if the enzymes were not present. I submit that we need to direct our research at enzymes suited to breaking down prion proteins. The cool thing about this is that enzymes are REALLY specialized. Bio-reactions are molecular-SHAPE-dependent! This means that an enzyme that can demolish the bad prion protein can entirely ignore the needed variant of that protein.

Once we have found some suitable enzymes, we genetically engineer bacteria to mass produce them, and simply add them to the diet, in pill form. This is perfectly analogous to something that some people do already. Those people are naturally unable to properly digest milk. They can take pills containg lactase, the enzyme that their bodies don't happen to produce, which properly breaks down milk during digestion. So, with respect to anti-prion pills, any prions that happen to become part of the diet can be destroyed before they reach the brain. Possibly those enzymes can also circulate in the blood and eliminate prions in the brain, too. Certainly we shouldn't hesitate to add those enzymes to all animal feed, lawn fertilizer, weed killer, etctera. EVENTUALLY, the world will be cleansed of this scourge, but first we have to find those enzymes.

Let's get started!