Dr. Byron Caughey,  Senior Investigator at the NIAID/NIH Rocky Mountain Laboratory, in Hamilton, Montana,  will deliver two lectures at ISU on Tuesday, March 22.

Dr. Caughey has prepared a talk, suitable for a general lay audience, entitled:  "BSE, chronic wasting disease, scrapie and CJD: the perils of prion diseases", which will be presented at  7 PM, March 22, in the Physical Sciences Complex, Room 140, on ISU's main campus, in Pocatello, Idaho.

A reception for the speaker, with refreshments, will take place in the lobby of the PSC building starting at 6:30 PM, preceding the talk. The talk will focus on addressing questions about the potential risks of transmission of animal TSE diseases (transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE) or prion diseases ) to humans. This talk should be of interest to ranchers, hunters, and anyone concerned about the safety of the general food supply.

A more specialized research seminar will be presented by Dr. Caughey at 4 PM, March 22, in Physical Sciences 108, entitled:  "The most infectious prion protein particle and its invasion of neurons".  This talk will focus on the investigations into the molecular biology of prion disease transmission.  Dr. Caughey will discuss experiments which visualize and characterize the initial steps associated with prion infection and transport within neuronal cells.

Both talks are open to the public, and free.

For more information, including extended abstracts of the two talks,  please visit the web-page:  http://www.isu.edu/~boswkenn/sigmaxi/lectures.html  or contact Dr. Ken Bosworth at boswkenn@isu.edu