VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 13 (UPI) -- Canadian researchers say they've received $2.9 million to study prion disease, research that could lead to therapies for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and ALS.
Collaborative research groups at nine different universities across Canada say they are finding increasing connections between development of prion disease and common human neurodegenerative disorders.
Prion diseases are fatal, infectious and transmissible diseases of humans and animals associated with a "sponge-like" degeneration of brain tissue.
In animals, the most common prion diseases include BSE or "mad cow" disease, scrapie in sheep and goats and CWD in deer and elk.
Some examples of prion diseases in humans include fatal and sporadic familial insomnia, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and its many varieties, and Kuru.
Researchers will use the $2.9 million funding from PrioNet Canada in 11 projects to better understand the biology of prion disease, to develop strategies to manage prion disease outbreaks and minimize the impacts, and to apply findings on prion diseases to the treatment of human neurodegenerative disorders, a PrioNet release said Wednesday.
