Swiss scientists have discovered a new way to detect the presence of mad cow disease or its human equivalent, which could be the basis for a cure and a way to purify donor blood, they said Wednesday.

But the leader of the team at Zurich University emphasized that what they had done was only the scientific groundwork.

"We have not developed a new test," Professor Adriano Aguzzi told a news conference. "It is not up to our laboratory to develop a test or a cure, that is for industry to do. But we are willing to make our results available."

The results of the study by his team at the Institute for Neuropathology of Zurich University Hospital were published in science journal Nature.

"It is our hope that this can lead to a better test, lead to a treatment of the new variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob and could be used to remove (infected proteins) from transfusion blood," he said.

The human form of BSE, new variant Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease (nvCJD), has killed more than 80 people in Britain and two in France. There is no known cure for the deadly disease that wastes away the brain.

Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), and nvCJD occur when a protein called a prion, that appears naturally in the brain, changes and folds in a unusual way.

DISCOVERY CENTERS AROUND ROLE OF PLASMINOGEN

The team found that a blood product, plasminogen, played a key role in transmitting the disease. It established a laboratory method to check the plasminogen for the presence of aberrant prions.

Aguzzi declined to be drawn on how long it would take to develop a test or a cure on the basis of the plasminogen findings. But he said such a test would be far more accurate than currently available tests.

In humans, surgeons now have to take tissue samples from the tonsils to determine whether the patient is suffering from nvCJD. For the plasminogen test, a sample of cells from the back of the throat would suffice.

In animals, the test would be simpler and faster and could be done by machines. The findings could also be used to purify donated blood of aberrant prions.

Aguzzi said his team was still trying to find out the exact way in which the aberrant prions -- ingested as food -- travel from the digestive track into the nervous system and the brain.

SCIENTIST IN FAVOR OF TOTAL MEAT AND BONEMEAL BAN

Aguzzi said he agreed with a total ban on the use of meat and bonemeal (MBM) not just for feeding cattle but all animals.

MBM is ground-up animal parts used as a protein additive in animal feed but now suspected of spreading mad cow disease.

Aguzzi also doubted whether there was really an actual outbreak of new cases of mad cow disease in France, which has triggered renewed consumer panic about the safety of beef.

"Now that they are counting accurately, they suddenly find a lot of cases," he noted, saying in general the occurrence of both BSE and nvCJD was declining.

　　France, which holds the European Union (news - web sites)'s rotating presidency and is grappling with rising incidence of mad cow disease which has prompted a number of countries to ban French beef, has failed to persuade the EU to ban MBM.

　　EU farm ministers agreed Tuesday to test far more animals for BSE than are currently screened, and to have scientists advise by the end of November whether the national bans on French beef were valid.

(From ChinaDaily)