Two University of Ottawa research teams are getting a total of $590,000 for their work on infectious brain diseases such as mad cow disease.
Vancouver-based PrioNet Canada said it was providing the funding to the two projects aiming to help solve the food- and health-related threats posed by prion diseases, which are untreatable, infectious and fatal neurodegenerative diseases.
Dr. Daniel Krewski and his team will be working on mathematical models and surveys to calculate the risk of Canadians contracting Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease – the human form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE, commonly known as mad cow disease –when exposed to contaminated beef, as well as the probability of human-to-human transmission of the disease through blood transfusions and surgery.
The second University of Ottawa project being funded is that of Dr. Michael Tyshenko and his team, who is doing research on the risk associated with the transmission of vCJD through biological materials used in transplantation procedures, since some of the materials may be artificially grown using high prion risk cattle materials.
The funding is part of a total $8-million injection by PrioNet Canada into 19 different projects across the country.
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