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
