On Aug. 30, 2021, after 30 years of steady progress, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) scientists and colleagues from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland announced they had solved the structure of an infectious prion protein and have created 3D images of their model.

Their work, published in Molecular Cell, will help researchers better understand the changes that take place when normal prion protein converts to an infectious prion form.