New cleaning process reduces hospital risk of vCJD

[Celebration]

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=healthNews&storyID=2005-08-02T230201Z_01_L02340475_RTRIDST_0_HEALTH-HEALTH-MADCOW-DC.XML

LONDON (Reuters) -

Doctors have been concerned that variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) could be transmitted by contaminated surgical equipment, since standard sterilizing procedures do not destroy the abnormal prion proteins that cause the illness.

The new cleaning technique, which is described in the Journal of General Virology, could also be used to reduce infection risk from all forms of human prion diseases -- progressive brain wasting illnesses for which there is no cure.

Unlike viruses and bacteria, prion proteins are resistant to high temperatures and stick very strongly to metal surfaces.

But researchers at the University of Edinburgh have devised a new technique to break these infectious particles down, using a high energy form of gas called plasma.

[kestrel91316]

1. Why don't they just use a proteolytic enzyme treatment??