Advancing our understanding of human prions hinges on developing
better models of disease. Human-to-human transmission of prions may occur following
exposures through peripheral routes, and we need models that can mimic these disease
outcomes. With this in mind, we continue to develop improved transgenic mouse models
expressing the human prion protein that are susceptible not only to infection of the brain, but
also exposures by peripheral routes. The goal of this project is to use these refined models to
characterize susceptibility by medically-relevant routes of infection and to understand how prion
strain properties influence these processes. This project will also focus on comparing the
outcomes of infections with prions from the brain or peripheral tissues of the lymphoid system
following exposures by different routes of inoculation. Through this project we aspire to improve
our understanding of how prion strains and other factors influence the infectious transmission of
human prions.
Alyssa Block, PhD is a postdoctoral fellow within the Prion Research Center at
Colorado State University. Dr. Block earned her Ph.D. at Creighton University in Omaha,
Nebraska where she studied transmission, adaptation, and strain emergence of synthetic prions
in hamsters. Dr. Block investigates the strain diversity of emergent Nordic chronic wasting
disease and development of improved human prion disease animal models.