Over the last decade, scientists have discovered the importance and widespread presence in the body of a remarkable family of proteins known as prion proteins.
Research links various types of prion proteins to neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s—and this has fueled the search for new drugs that could halt the progression of these terrible disorders.
Other discoveries have revealed the essential roles prion proteins play in memory and immunity, and—in an extraordinary finding—the part they may have played in the beginnings of life on our planet.
