New way found to remove prions
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh have developed a new means of ridding surgical instruments of the infectious agents that cause variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) in humans using gas plasmas.
Proteinaceous infectious particles, or prions, are fundamentally different from other kinds of pathogen – such as viruses, bacteria and fungi – and are very difficult to remove by standard decontamination processes Because prions are resistant to high temperatures and adhere very strongly to metal surfaces, they could be inadvertently transferred through surgical instruments and consequently infect other patients, explained Professor Robert Baxter, of the University of Edinburgh's School of Chemistry. The new technique, published in the Journal of General Virology, uses high-energy forms of gas, called plasmas, to strip contaminating biomolecules from the surfaces of medical instruments. Not only does it remove contaminating molecules from stainless steel surfaces to levels a thousand times lower than those achieved by existing methods, but it also destroys the prions. It too uses radio waves to excite gas molecules, converting them into plasma composed of highly active particles which scour the surface of the instruments, breaking down any traces of biological tissue and rendering them harmless. The Department of Health is now funding a multi-disciplinary project with the scientists to try and develop the new disinfection technique commercially.
