EN
In March 1996 the UK government stated that the most likely cause of a new disease defined as being a new variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) was exposure to a causative agent of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). Since then, further cases and research point to a link between the two diseases. The most convincing evidence has been demonstrated in experiments carried out by two groups of researchers led by Moira Bruce and John Collinge. Both groups reinforce the conclusion that vCJD is quite distinct from other forms of CJD and provide essential data indicating that this new variant of the disease is caused by an agent strain of BSE. These recent results include a large number of transmissions to both transgenic mice expressing human PrP and their non-transgenic counterparts and support the conclusion that vCJD and BSE infective factors are highly similar in their molecular and pathogenic features. The article discusses the data which ,-both confirm and question this conclusion.