Bugs and More

For the past three weeks, and for the next three as well, I have been and will continue to learn all about infectious diseases. Viruses, bacteria, parasites, fungi. You name it, we're probably learning about it. While we are currently about halfway through the process, we've only just begun the bulk of the material (bacteria) yet have completely finished viruses.

Don't get me wrong: viruses are very interesting. At the beginning of ID I thought they were much more impressive than bacteria could be. I mean, come on, bacteria can at least understandably be viewed as tangible organisms. We can see them move and divide. They are cells just like us. They have a cell wall, sure, but we can see the connection. Viruses? They're pretty much just little grenades with nucleic acid, bits of DNA and RNA covered in a protein capsid. How can we rationalize that? Pretty creepy little things.

                                    Viruses: addressed "to whom it may concern." 

Imagine my shock when we began discussing something that put viruses to shame. Made viruses into pocket-watches while they become the sundial. Of what do I speak? Prions.  They are nothing more than little chunks of protein that infect cells and then screw things up. By "screw things up" I mean "get into your brain and then create tiny holes." They're the culprit behind disease like Kuru and Mad-Cow. They make no sense. Humans, animals, plants, etc? Gobs of cells all chocked full of organelles and DNA striving to make a living in life. Bacteria? Little cuties we can't help but feel sorry for. It's like they're trying to be us but just can't ever quite get there (don't feel too bad for them: Exhibit A).  Viruses? Jerks that just keep trying to take over; the ants at our proverbial picnic.

But Prions? They just want to watch the world burn.

                                       Namely because they would survive it. 

What do I mean by this? In 1986, people in the UK burned over 4 million cows who might have been infected with BSE (Mad cow). And I mean torched. We're talking over 1000F heat. They then buried the ashes underground in a concrete container until 1998. TWELVE YEARS. At that point they opened the container and found the prions still smiling right back, waiting to continue their rampage of destruction. Wicked, eh?

So should we be worried? Pouring buckets of cash into prion research so that we don't all have chunks of protein infecting our brain?!

Not really. Turns out the major way to get a prion disease is via ingestion of infected tissue, also known as eating brains. This is why Kuru has only ever been historically found among people of the Fore tribe in Papau New Guinea (who engaged in cannibalism) and BSE was spreading because of the use of animal feed made up of dead-and-processed-other-animals. I'm going to spare you all the lovely photo of such a mental image that was included in our lecture. (Edit: to clarify, the most prevalent form of prion disease in humans is CJD which comes from ingesting infected beef, which likely themselves had infected food from animal products. Details.)

Oh, medical school.


Until next time.