Friday, December 5, 2014

Dr. Gambetti will be resigning as Director of the National Prion Disease Pathology

The National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center

 

Supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

 

Sponsored by the American Association of Neuropathologists (AANP)

 

____________________________________

 

Office: Advisory Committee:

 

Dr. Pierluigi Gambetti, Director Dr. Barbara Crain Dr. Bernardino Ghetti, Co-Director Dr. Stephen DeArmond Dr. Jiri Safar, Co-Director Dr. Daniel Perl Dr. Wenquan Zou, Associate Director Dr. Clive Hamlin, Director, Clinical Laboratory Dr. Shulin Zhang, Genetic Analyses Dr. Mark Cohen, Histopathology

 

Andrea Webb, Center Manager

 

To the families touched by prion diseases

 

Dear families,

 

I wish to inform you that I will be resigning as Director of the National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center (NPDPSC) effective January 1st 2015. I will continue to work with the Center in an advisory position and as a consultant for special cases. I will also continue to serve as Medical Director of the CJD Foundation through 2015, a role I value immensely.

 

Dr. Jiri Safar, Associate Professor of Pathology and Neurology at Case Western Reserve University, will be the new Director. Dr. Safar graduated from Charles University Medical School, Prague, Czech Republic, where he trained in Neurology. Dr. Safar has made many contributions to prion research and is an internationally recognized expert in prion diseases. He worked with Dr. Carleton Gajdusek and with Dr. Stanley Prusiner, each of whom was awarded a Nobel Prize for their prion work.

 

The mission and basic activities of the NPDPSC will remain unchanged. The Center will continue to coordinate free-of-charge autopsies in all cases of suspected prion diseases, and will continue to perform and report diagnostic examinations of tissues, CSF and blood.

 

In 1997 I established the NPDPSC with the support of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The collaboration of the Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) Foundation with our Center began in 1999 and intensified after 2002 when the Foundation moved to Akron under the leadership of Florence Kranitz, and collaboration has increased ever since. During 17 years of NPDPSC activity I had the opportunity to personally interact with many of you, the patient’s families, especially at the Annual CJD Foundation Family Conference. These interactions were of inestimable value to me, for they gave me and many others at the Center a firsthand glimpse into the personal anguish that prion diseases cause, as well as making me and the other researchers in attendance even more aware of our scientific limitations, and of the dramatic need for finding a treatment. I’m deeply grateful to you for these interactions that I will always treasure.

 

As Director I hope that the NPDSC has helped you somewhat, by giving you a sense of closure to help you deal with your grief.

 

Sincerely yours,

 


 

TSS

 

SPECIAL ALERT The OIE recommends strengthening animal disease surveillance worldwide

 

OIE BSE TSE PRION AKA MAD COW DISEASE ?

 

‘’the silence was deafening’’ ...tss

 


 

Sunday, November 23, 2014

 

Confirmed Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (variant CJD) Case in Texas in June 2014 confirmed as USA case NOT European

 


 

Monday, November 3, 2014

 

USA CJD TSE PRION UNIT, TEXAS, SURVEILLANCE UPDATE NOVEMBER 2014

 

National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center Cases Examined1 (October 7, 2014)

 

***6 Includes 11 cases in which the diagnosis is pending, and 19 inconclusive cases;

 

***7 Includes 12 (11 from 2014) cases with type determination pending in which the diagnosis of vCJD has been excluded.

 

***The sporadic cases include 2660 cases of sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (sCJD),

 

***50 cases of Variably Protease-Sensitive Prionopathy (VPSPr)

 

***and 21 cases of sporadic Fatal Insomnia (sFI).

 


 

Monday, November 3, 2014

 

The prion protein protease sensitivity, stability and seeding activity in variably protease sensitive prionopathy brain tissue suggests molecular overlaps with sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

 


 

Tuesday, November 04, 2014

 

The pathological and molecular but not clinical phenotypes are maintained after second passage of experimental atypical bovine spongiform encephalopathy in cattle

 


 

*** Singeltary reply ; Molecular, Biochemical and Genetic Characteristics of BSE in Canada Singeltary reply ;

 


 

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

 

MAD COW USDA TSE PRION COVER UP or JUST IGNORANCE, for the record AUGUST 2014

 


 

Thursday, October 02, 2014

 

[Docket No. APHIS-2013-0064] Concurrence With OIE Risk Designations for Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy

 


 

Saturday, August 14, 2010

 

BSE Case Associated with Prion Protein Gene Mutation (g-h-BSEalabama) and VPSPr PRIONPATHY

 


 

2009 UPDATE ON ALABAMA AND TEXAS MAD COWS 2005 and 2006

 


 

Terry S. Singeltary Sr. on the Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Public Health Crisis *video*

 


 

Jeff Schwan, sporadic cjd, clustering, and BSE aka mad cow type disease, is there a link ? *video*

 


 

1997-11-10: Panorama - The british disease *video*

 


 

Sunday, September 6, 2009

 

MAD COW USA 1997 *video*

 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 

tss