The Centre for Prions and Protein Folding Disease is a leading prion research institute, located at the University of Alberta.
05/01/2026
As part of April being Parkinson's Awareness Month, CPPFD's Dr. Holger Wille was interviewed by CTV Edmonton about his lab's project to develop a prophylactic vaccine against Parkinson's disease. You can see it here.
CTV News 4 likes. "New research led to advancements in battle against Parkinson's disease"
07/18/2022
A nice overview of inherited photoreceptor diseases and zebrafish by our colleagues Nicole Noel and Ted Allision
Zebrafish and inherited photoreceptor disease: Models and insights - PubMed Photoreceptor dysfunctions and degenerative diseases are significant causes of vision loss in patients, with few effective treatments available. Targeted interventions to prevent or reverse photoreceptor-related vision loss are not possible without a thorough understanding of the underlying mechanis...
06/12/2022
Anthony Ness et al paper on PrPC in integumentary glands of deer.
Cellular prion protein distribution in the vomeronasal organ, parotid, and scent glands of white-tailed deer and mule deer Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a contagious and fatal transmissible spongiform encephalopathy affecting species of the cervidae family. CWD has an expanding geographic range and complex, poorly u...
06/12/2022
From the Westaway lab--an update on gene drive for deleting prion genes in animals:
Investigating CRISPR/Cas9 gene drive for production of disease-preventing prion gene alleles - PubMed Prion diseases are a group of fatal neurodegenerative disorders that includes chronic wasting disease, which affects cervids and is highly transmissible. Given that chronic wasting disease prevalence exceeds 30% in some endemic areas of North America, and that eventual transmission to other mammalia...
02/06/2022
Congrats to the Kar lab on their recent publication on unconjugated PLGA nanoparticles protecting neurons against B-amyloid induced toxicity!
Unconjugated PLGA nanoparticles attenuate temperature-dependent β-amyloid aggregation and protect neurons against toxicity: implications for Alzheimer's disease pathology - PubMed Conversion of β-amyloid (Aβ) peptides from soluble random-coil to aggregated protein enriched with β-sheet-rich intermediates has been suggested to play a role in the degeneration of neurons and development of Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology. Aggregation of Aβ peptide can be prompted by a var...
01/24/2022
Another paper from our Genome Canada team---neural transcriptomics of CWD-infected white-tailed deer. Congrats to Eóin, Allen and all!
Neural transcriptomic signature of chronic wasting disease in white-tailed deer - BMC Genomics Background The increasing prevalence and expanding geographical range of the chronic wasting disease (CWD) panzootic in cervids is threatening human, animal, environmental and economic health. The pathogenesis of CWD in cervids is, however, not well understood. We used RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) to co...
01/24/2022
More on Tau strains from Sang Gyun in the Westaway lab, and Chae Kim in the Safar group.
Distinct populations of highly potent TAU seed conformers in rapidly progressing Alzheimer’s disease Rapid replication in vitro implicates distinct populations of misfolded hippocampal 4R TAU protein in accelerated progression of Alzheimer’s disease.
The Aiken/McKenzie is looking for a post-doc to work on CWD projects-- genetics, interspecies transmission, environmental contamination/decontamination.
11/22/2021
Congrats to Allen and all for their recent paper in Rejuvenation Research!
Metformin treatment in old rats and effects on mitochondrial integrity - PubMed Metformin, a commonly used, well-tolerated treatment for type 2 diabetes, is being deployed in clinical trials to ameliorate aging in older non-diabetic humans. Concerningly, some experiments in model organisms have suggested that metformin use at old ages shortens lifespan and is toxic to mitochond...
09/17/2021
Congratulations to Qi and all from the Prion Ctr on this cool paper describing a role for exosomes in AD pathology.
Implication of exosomes derived from cholesterol-accumulated astrocytes in Alzheimer's disease pathology | Disease Models & Mechanisms | The Company of Biologists Qi Wu, Leonardo Cortez, Razieh Kamali-Jamil, Valerie Sim, Holger Wille, Satyabrata Kar; Implication of exosomes derived from cholesterol-accumulated astrocytes in Alzheimer's disease pathology. Dis Model Mech 2021; dmm.048929. doi: https://doi.org/10.1242/dmm.048929