Innovation Anthology #212:

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At the present time, the only way to confirm whether cattle are suffering from “ mad cow” disease is to test them after they are slaughtered.

However, the research of Dr. David Knox and his colleagues at the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg may soon lead to a simple urine test for mad cow disease.

Dr. Knox presented his findings at the recent prion conference in Edmonton which was hosted by PrioNet Canada and the Alberta Ingenuity Alberta Prion Research Institute.

As Dr. Knox explains, an examination of cattle urine would reveal biomarkers that indicate whether the cattle are infected, long before clinical symptoms appear.

DR. DAVID KNOX: We found one marker, at least in our small test set, that is able to discriminate with 100 percent accuracy between control and infected samples. And that’s a protein called cholesterin. However, it requires further validation. Does it work in all BSE infected cattle, is one question. And the other question is do you see increased amounts in response to other types of infection as well.

Dr. David Knox has detected the biomarker in urine as early as 8 months after infection.

Thanks today to Alberta Ingenuity.

I’M CHERYL CROUCHER

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Canadian Institutes of Health Research

Program Date: 2009-03-19