Test may aid disease research Test may aid disease research By Beth Wohlberg Camera Staff Writer Biopsies on the tonsils of 200 deer near Estes Park and Livermore may help researchers learn more about how chronic wasting disease spreads. Until now, tests for the disease have been conducted only on dead animals.
Researchers study the brain tissue, which develops a spongy form in diseased animals.
Chronic wasting disease is a degenerative neurological disease that attacks the brain and causes deer and elk to become emaciated, display abnormal behavior, lose control of bodily functions and die. Chronic wasting disease is found in deer and elk in northeastern Colorado and in southern Wyoming. About 15 percent of deer in the most infected regions of Colorado have the disease. These animals will be radio-collared, and we will be able to see what animals with chronic wasting disease might do. Prions, the infectious proteins thought to cause the disease, can be found in the tonsils even before evidence can be seen in the brain tissue, Williams said.