Mad Cow Disease & Other TSEs Caused by Misformed Proteins?

News-Medical.net reports that University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston researchers have essentially proven that mad cow disease and other TSEs (transmissible spongiform encephalopathies) are not caused by a virus, but instead by malformed proteins, aka prions.

Besides mad cow disease, TSEs include new-variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Syndrome, scrapie, kuru and chronic wasting disease (CWD).