Drug compounds to combat neurodegenerative diseases

Prions are the abnormal, pathogenic agents that are transmissible and are able to induce abnormal folding of specific normal cellular proteins. Prion disease is an umbrella term for a group of fatal and currently untreatable neurodegenerative diseases that not only affect humans, but also wild and captive animals. These diseases include Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in humans, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or 'mad cow disease'), and chronic wasting disease (CWD) affecting deer, elk and moose.