| Portobello Books |
Portobello Books Ltd Twelve Addison Avenue, London W11 4QR
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Tel +44(0)20 7605 1380 Fax +44 (0) 20 7605 1361 mail@portobellobooks.com
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In 1765, doctors in Venice were stumped by the death of a man
who suffered from chronic insomnia for more than a year and s
pent his final agonizing months paralyzed by exhaustion. Over
the next two centuries, this rare, inherited disease continued
to baffle the experts as it struck the family at random,
passing from generation to generation like a deadly dynastic
curse. The cause turned out to be a rogue protein called a prion -
the vector that is also responsible for Mad Cow Disease, 'scrapie' in
sheep, and the fatal outbreak of uncontrollable laughter that decimated
a tribe in Papua New Guinea. As appalling as these conditions are,
however, the future of prion diseases is even more mysterious and
frightening: for prions are not alive and have no DNA, making
them virtually impossible to destroy. In a ground-breaking work of scientific detection, D. T. Max pins down this most mutable and maddening of enemies and tells a story that is at once enlightening and spell-binding. |
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