What are prions and why are they so hard to kill ?
In: Biology
Prions are altered proteins, you can’t really kill them because they’re not like a virus or bacteria.
These proteins are often infectious and can create more prions from “normal” proteins (imagine a zombie kind of situation).
We still don’t know why they are so hard to “kill”, some scientists say that it’s because all our methods target DNA and/or RNA, and they don’t have those.
What we know is that they resist digestion, really high temperatures (that you can’t subject a person to) and even ionising radiation. They also stick to medical equipment and to get rid of them you have to sterilise them heavily with bleach and heat (and that doesn’t always work, it’s better to just throw the instruments out).
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