BLOOD tests could soon pick up the human form of mad cow
diseasebefore any symptoms appear. Two groups of researchers
have developed separate ways to detect low levels of the prion
which causes variant CJD. The startling advances could also lead
to animal tests for BSE and scrapie and ways to screen blood
donated for transfusions. Small amounts of the prion that causes
vCJD are thought to circulate in the blood, but current tests
cannot detect it. Now Claudio Soto and his colleagues from the
Serono Pharmaceutical Research Institute in Geneva have found a
way to amplify the offending prion. They do this by using small
amounts of infectious protein to convert much larger amounts of
the normal form. Until now, no one had managed to do this in the
lab because newly converted prions form unreactive clumps. Soto
uses sound waves to break up the clumps after each round ... To
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