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Iirc hospitals that treat patients with prion diseases incinerate all materials that contact the patients. I don't know how they sanitize the rooms but it can't
by Red_Leaves_Flyy 5y ago
Iirc hospitals that treat patients with prion diseases incinerate all materials that contact the patients. I don't know how they sanitize the rooms but it can't be cheap or eco friendly.
- turing_complete 5y agoDestroying prions is eco friendly.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 5y agoHumans need a non toxic environment. Plants, and life in general, will find a way. With, and without, us.
- XorNot 5y agoChemical agents which cause protein-crosslinking would be the preferred method - you can broadly make every side-group reactive and cause them all to stitch together with anything else organic, which tends to inactivate them (makes them a big blob which can't do much). But it's nasty stuff to work with, since it also happily does tons of damage to the proteins making up the humans applying it.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 5y agoDo you have an example of such a chemical being used to effectively remediate prion contaminated environments?
- XorNot 5y agoApparently not: I was thinking glutaraldehyde which is used for cleaning in hospitals but reading up the advice for prions is explicitly opposed to cross-linking agents. Which makes sense I guess but it's also scary.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 5y agoYou raised my hopes and dashed them exquisitely. Until we have better, cheaper, and less error prone methods of remediating prion diseases they're the #1 fear on my biological apocalypse list.