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                                           BIOINFORMATICS COLLOQUIUM
					       College of Science
                                            George Mason University
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			    Self-assembly and substructure of prion protein amyloid fibrils 
 
                                                  Ilia Baskakov, Ph.D.
 
                                                       Professor 
                                           University of Maryland Baltimore

Abstract:
The discovery of prion disease transmission in mammals, as well as a non-Mendelian inheritance 
in yeast, has led to the establishment of a new concept in biology, the prion hypothesis. The 
prion hypothesis postulates that an abnormal protein conformation propagates itself in an 
autocatalytic manner, and, thereby, acts as a transmissible agent of prion disease. I will 
summarize our current knowledge about the substructure of PrP amyloid fibrils, introduce the 
mechanism of branched chain reaction for describing the peculiar kinetics of prion self-assembly, 
and review potential strategies and challenges related to reconstitution of prion infectivity de novo.