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Science 3 December 2004:
Vol. 306. no. 5702, pp. 1692 - 1693
DOI: 10.1126/science.1106679
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Perspectives

BIOMEDICINE:
Prion Dormancy and Disease

Robin W. Carrell

There are reports that the variant Creutzfedlt-Jacob disease (vCJD) epidemic in the United Kingdom is on the wane, having peaked at 150 cases. However, as Carrell points out in a taut Perspective, two surveys in the United Kingdom compounded by a new study of transgenic mice carrying variant forms of the human prion protein (Wadsworth et al.) suggest that there may be many dormant carriers of vCJD, who remain healthy but potentially could be infective to susceptible individuals.

The author is at the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 2XY, UK. E-mail: rwc1000{at}cam.ac.uk

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
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J. E. Jewell, M. M. Conner, L. L. Wolfe, M. W. Miller, and E. S. Williams (2005)
J. Gen. Virol. 86, 2127-2134
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)