Candace Mathiason
Colorado State University-Fort Collins, CO·Microbiology & Immunology
Prion diseases are fatal brain diseases caused by misfolded proteins called prions. A prion converts the normal version of the protein into more copies of itself.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Medicine & Clinical Research
Ecology & Evolution
- Topics
chronic wasting disease
prion disease
prions
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2027
What they work on
- Determine the safety and immune effectiveness in white-tailed deer of two CWD vaccines, one targeting misfolded prion protein (PrPSc) and one removing the normal protein that prions convert, alone and combined.
- Test whether these vaccine strategies, used alone or together, protect deer from chronic wasting disease after a graded infection challenge in an indoor deer facility.
- Measure whether vaccination reduces prions shed in urine, feces and saliva of infected deer, using very sensitive prion detection methods.
More about the research
No vaccine or treatment exists for any prion disease. Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a prion disease of deer and elk (cervids) that is spreading rapidly across North America. Whether it can infect humans is uncertain. Mad cow disease (BSE) in cattle gave rise to a transmissible human prion disease, which shows the risk. Millions of Americans hunt deer and elk, and thousands of infected animals are eaten each year. CWD is therefore both a possible health threat and an economic one.
Why it matters
There is no vaccine or treatment for any prion disease. A vaccine that works against chronic wasting disease in deer could give wildlife agencies and the cervid farming industry a tool to slow its spread. Reducing prion shedding could also lower environmental contamination and the possible risk of CWD passing to people who hunt and eat deer and elk.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Pete Guiden
Hamilton College, NY·Ecology & Evolution
Test whether overabundant white-tailed deer indirectly simplify rodent communities, narrow rodent diets and raise Lyme disease prevalence in northeastern US forests, using deer exclosure fences and unfenced controls.
Christina Sigurdson
University of California-San Diego, CA·Neuroscience
Determine how an anti-PrP antibody or purified infectious prion oligomers trigger synaptic kinase signaling (enzymes that add phosphate tags) in neurons derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells.
Liming Li
Northwestern University, IL·Genetics
Identify prion-specific changes in gene expression and cell-to-cell variation in yeast carrying [SWI+], [MOT3+] or both, using high-throughput single-cell RNA sequencing.
The school
Colorado State University-Fort Collins: 23 labs on PI Pages, $466M a year on research, 276 research doctorates a year.
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