MRC scientists develop vCJD blood test

Scientists from the Medical Research Council (MRC) have been able to create the world's first accurate blood test for the fatal brain condition known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD).

A team at the MRC Prion Unit has created a method of detecting prions, the infectious proteins which cause vCJD, with 100,000 times more sensitivity than any previous method.

The disease, which is the human form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) or mad cow disease, first rose to prominence in 1995 and causes personality change, loss of body function and death.

It is thought that the new test, if made widely available, would allow carriers of the illness to be diagnosed early and help to gauge how widespread infections have become.

Professor John Collinge, director of the MRC Prion Unit, said: "The next step will be to test anonymously several thousand blood donors from a country unaffected by BSE in order to gain a better idea of how the test fares in practice."

According to figures from the National Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Surveillance Unit at the University of Edinburgh, there have been 1,559 definite or suspected deaths from vCJD since 1990.