ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,306,186, issued on May 20.
"Live tests for diagnosis of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy in animals and humans" was invented by Frank O. Bastian (New Orleans).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "We identified a novel spiralin protein on the membrane of a Spiroplasma sp. isolated from CWD infected deer to which we have made recombinant protein that immune reacts with sera from CWD infected deer and not with controls. This recombinant spiralin protein is being developed into live diagnostic tests for CWD including ELISA and lateral flow assays which are also applicable for diagnosis of scrapie in sheep and Creutzfeldt-jakob disease (CJD) ...