About prions

From the very beginning of life, every living organism has had a "just interest" in ****ing with other different types of living organisms and a "democratic interest" in preserving itself, which has led to the orderly evolution and reproduction of living things on Earth for nearly 4.6 billion years. This has enabled the creatures on earth to evolve and reproduce in an orderly manner for nearly 4.6 billion years. Until the emergence of human beings, we chose the "democratic interest" as the first of the two important things for living beings - because we can think, we can synthesize, and we can create new things to cope with the "dictatorship" of other living beings over us. "We can think, we can synthesize, we can create new things to cope with what other creatures are doing to us. So with our nearly 5,000 years of biology and medicine-humans have been following human nature, preferring to harm the rights of lower creatures, and to this day, can't be said to go back.

In these five thousand years of searching, we have continued to think and learn. From the smallest colds and coughs, to smallpox and vaccines and penicillin to antibiotics, malaria and artemisinin and cancer. Today, there is a new problem: prions.

Prions, though uncommon in life, are by far the most difficult disease to cure, on a par with Ebola. Its conundrum is that prions are a black swan in conventional biology. In conventional biology, the only things that can make people sick from external factors are microbes, parasites and viruses. Prions, on the other hand, although they are called viruses, are also called infectious proteins - yes, they are proteins, not organisms, so all the conventional therapies used to inhibit or destroy microorganisms don't work on them, including antibiotics; and prions, as proteins, are infected in the central nervous system of the brain, which means that if you want to remove tissue with prions in it, you're going to have to cut out the tissue that has them. This means that if you try to remove prion-carrying tissues, you will be crippled, and in serious cases, paralyzed; of course, some people may wonder whether it is possible to inject some phages into the brain (1) to destroy those prion-carrying cells, but this is impossible, because human cells have an inherent strong resistance to phages, and prions are exactly the components of nerve cells, and at the same time, it is even more resistant to other physical means and chemicals, and the current high-pressure instruments are ineffective against it! The current high-pressure equipment is ineffective against it, it can withstand high temperatures of nearly 360 degrees Celsius, ultraviolet rays such as physical rays are also ineffective against it, and formaldehyde such as chemical reagents can not be helped. The prion is currently an incurable virus that will threaten the human race.

Diseases caused by prions can also be extremely deadly. When your body exists or generated (2) after a prion, the prion is only a few proteins, naturally not climate, but it is a protein, there is no nucleic acid, not to mention the DNA or RNA, (3) then how does it cause disease? The answer is to "modify" other proteins. Prions are generally SC-type proteins, and they can turn other C-type proteins into SC-type proteins by contacting them. When most of the proteins in the brain are changed into prions, the organization of the brain changes, like a sponge, full of holes, which can cause neurological disorders, leading to various degrees of mental illness. One of the most typical disorders is Sheep Scratch Disorder. When a sheep gets this condition, it feels the surface of its body and its itchiness, constantly rubs against the fence, and eventually dies of paralysis. This is precisely because the prions disrupt the pain and motor nerves. The diseases we know as Parkinson's disease, mad cow disease and rabies are also prions. So prions are also extremely lethal.

Although prions are serious, their mode of transmission is very limited. Prions cannot be spread by air or water because they are just a protein. Prions, however, are formed naturally in some people, i.e., they are present in the brain at birth. On top of that, and more importantly, our food. Protein-rich foods like beef, dairy products, beans, etc. can produce prions when they are contaminated. And when we consume these prion-laden foods, our immune system fails to recognize the prion and treats it as a protein, transporting it to the brain. However, it seems that prions do not take immediate effect in the body, but rather accumulate to a certain level before they strike. In the north, there is an ancient cannibalistic tribe that practiced religious cannibalism from time to time, and many old people in the area were found to be suffering from Alzheimer's disease, a symptom caused by prions, which confirms that prions accumulate in the human body over a long period of time and take effect later in life. And if we want to not encounter it, just stay away or remove contaminated food.

Prions are a huge challenge to biology today, requiring ****together with developments in molecular biology, molecular genetics, and other cutting-edge fields of biology. And whenever humanity faces such a challenge, it means even more that humanity is once again strong.

(1) Phage: A biological therapy currently in clinical trials to eliminate viruses by breeding single targeted phage viruses.

(2) Prions are generated in ways and under conditions that are currently unknown.

(3) Genetic material required for genetic polymorphism in plant and animal cells.