Objective
Recent results of epidemiological studies, experimental transmissions of the BSE agent as well as histological and biochemical studies on the presumed agent indicate that BSE may well have been transmitted to humans through consumption of contaminated meat. To date, 14 cases of a new variant Creutzfeld-Jakob disease(vCJD) have been observed in younger persons in the UK and one in France since 1994. This disease has not been observed earlier and its appearance significantly exceeds the sporadic incidence of CJD. The BSE agent is transmissible experimentally through peros application to a variety of mammals and can also be transmitted by intracerebral injection to primates. The neuropathological lesions found in the brain of experimentally infected animals resemble the lesions from BSE-diseased cows as well as from human patients dying with vCJD. In addition, the proteolytic cleavage pattern of the prion protein (the presumed BSE agent) extracted from the brains of these animals and from those of human vCJD cases retained the BSE signature .The potential extent of the epidemic in the British and in a worse scenario European population over the next few years has to be established. The future dynamics of this potential epidemic cannot be extrapolated from the surveillance of CJD in Europe within the next few years. The major problem in assessing the risk of BSE infection in individuals as well as in the general population is that the infectious dose acquired through food consumption of humans remains unknown. The Weissmann Report suggests that the best approach to obtain this data is experimental infection of nonhuman primates. This proposal suggests that a titration experiment in a nonhuman primate macaque species be performed with the aim of determining the infectious dose of brain material derived from BSE-diseased cattle by feeding.
We propose a specific set of trials to titrate the minimal infectious dose of the BSE agent in a nonhuman primate species. In parallel, we will address whether the BSE-induced BSE is transmissible through blood transfusion. This knowledge will then enable us to more precisely estimate the risk of BSE transmission to humans through contaminated food as well as the risk of BSE transmission from human to human by blood and blood products. The actual work will be performed in a coordinated fashion through a cooperation of 6 European centres. The proposed protocol will require 86 animals kept under biological safety conditions for up to 10 years.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences biological sciences zoology mammalogy primatology
- natural sciences biological sciences biochemistry biomolecules proteins
- agricultural sciences animal and dairy science domestic animals animal husbandry
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Funding Scheme
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Coordinator
37077 Göttingen
Germany
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.