Statistical mechanics of prion diseases - art. no. 058101

We present a two-dimensional, lattice based., protein-level statistical mec hanical model for prion diseases (e.g., mad cow disease) with concomitant p rion protein misfolding and aggregation. Our studies lead us to the hypothe sis that the observed broad incubation time distribution in epidemiological data reflect fluctuation dominated growth seeded by a few nanometer scale aggregates, while much narrower incubation time distributions for innoculat ed lab animals arise from statistical self-averaging. We model "species bar riers" to prion infection and assess a related treatment protocol.