Unique link found between mad cow disease and cancer

Researchers led by University of British Columbia researcher Neil
Cashman say they've made a surprise find about human cancer and
brain-wasting diseases in animals that could pave the way for vaccines
to halt all the diseases.

Cashman, a neurologist and researcher, was working on therapies for
preventing transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, a group of animal
brain-wasting diseases that include BSE in cows, scrapie in sheep, and
chronic wasting disease in deer and other cervids.

Though the illnesses each affect different animals they are all
caused by prions, which are unique infectious agents that cause the
normal prion protein to go "rogue."

Cashman explains that a protein is a chain of amino acids that only
acquires its function by being folded properly. When a prion protein
becomes misfolded after contact with another misfolded prion protein, it
exposes certain regions in the normal prion protein, technically called
"epitopes".

His team had identified a group of antibodies they thought could
target these epitopes, and thus halt the disease. But in order to test
the antibodies, using a technique called "immunostaining," they needed a
line of easy-to-grow, regular cells to act as "negative controls."

"And lo and behold, we found a few that stained intensely with these antibodies," Cashman explained to CTV.ca.

Quite to Cashman's surprise, some of the cancer cell lines reacted to
the same antibody he was testing on prion-infected brain cells.

"We realized that if these [cancer] tumour cells stain for these
antibodies, [the epitopes] could be a target for cancer
immunotherapies," Cashman said.

"We spent months trying to disprove the findings, thinking perhaps it
was some kind of mistake. And eventually, we proved to our satisfaction
that this antibody staining was real."

He says teams at UBC and B.C. Cancer Research Centre are now testing
how these antibodies can be used to develop a vaccine to treat cancer in
mice.

If all goes well, it's possible a vaccine could one day be tested on
human cancers too, though Cashman cautions these are still "very early
days."

One aspect that makes dreams of a vaccine against cancer exciting is
that the therapy would target only "misfolded" prion proteins, while
sparing normal prion proteins. So unlike chemotherapies that kill off
healthy cells along with cancer, therapies that target misfolded prion
protein would attack only rogue cells, sparing the healthy ones.

Cashman said it's possible that the same immunotherapy could also
work in human prion diseases, such as "mad cow disease" and classical
Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease – but only if there were a way to identify
infections in their earliest stages, before the illness caused symptoms.


"CJD is a very rapidly progressive disease, so by the time you make a
definitive diagnosis, usually the patient has only a few weeks to
live," Cashman explained.

"Perhaps if we had a good diagnostic for the incubating phase [of
CJD], then yes, it's possible that a vaccine against these epitopes
could block the infection before it gets to the brain. But that's
theoretical," he said.

This new area of research is being funded under PrioNet Canada's
Bootstrap program and with the assistance of two industry partners:
Amorfix Life Sciences Ltd.; and Saskatoon-based PREVENT – the Pan
Provincial Vaccine Initiative.

Cashman is the scientific founder and board member of Amorfix, and is the scientific director of PrioNet Canada.

That's pretty interesting.

As long as we all don't turn into zombies.

It's inevitable.

As long as I can be a Jihadist Boomer.

Id rather be a hunter. Being able to jump of skyscrapers would be pretty fun.

Actually, a smoker or that new humping guy would be nice. Yes, tentacle grab and touch Asian girls, yes...

Oh you fit the stereotype so well.