The prion paradigm
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.34024/rnc.2003.v11.8893Keywords:
Prion, scientific paradigm, history of science, Creutzfeldt Jacob disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathyAbstract
The prion hypotesis, as “infectious protein”, replacing the “slow virus hypothesis” for diseases as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy and Creutzfeldt Jacob disease, among others, started polemical debates in the scientific environment, because it confronted central dogmas of Biology. Between the proposition of the prion hypothesis by Prusiner in 1982 and his Nobel Prize in 1997, it happened the epidemic Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy in the United Kingdom and a new variant of Creutzfeldt Jacob disease, with strong linkages between these two diseases. The prion hypothesis brought a new scientific paradigm, first linked to rare diseases, that was reinforced with the arising of those epidemies. In this work we discuss these events under the ideas of Thomas Kuhn about scientific revolutions.
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