No. They’re basically misfolded proteins that tend to cause other proteins they touch to become similarly misfolded through mechanisms we don’t well understand

No. They’re basically misfolded proteins that tend to cause other proteins they touch to become similarly misfolded through mechanisms we don’t well understand (or at least, I don’t understand). They’re not alive. You can denature them, which more or less means destroying them. But destroying things tends to be harder than killing things.