He called the agent a prion, for proteinaceous infectious particles.

The word prion was scientific shorthand for "proteinaceous infectious particle."

These features have suggested that the agent may not contain nucleic acid, which has prompted the name prion (proteinaceous infectious particle).

After a decade of work, he came up with a snappy name for the rogue protein responsible: the "prion", or "proteinaceous infectious particle".

A prion has been defined as "small proteinaceous infectious particles which resist inactivation by procedures that modify nucleic acids".

Dr. Prusiner coined the term "prion," for "proteinaceous infectious particle," in 1981, and he has worked to demonstrate the hypothesis ever since.

Prions, he said in a 1982 article in Science magazine, were "proteinaceous infectious particles which are resistant to inactivation by most procedures that modify nucleic acids."

The public was unlikely to become concerned by talk of "proteinaceous infectious particles," "heterozygosity at the 129th codon," "infec-tivity of corneal epithelium" or "pathogenicity in mink."

The general public might not understand the significance of proteinaceous infectious particles, but they did know what you meant when you talked about grinding up dead cows and feeding them to other cows.

Ever since Dr. Prusiner coined the term prion (pronounced PREE-ahn), for proteinaceous infectious particles, in 1981, and started propounding his hypothesis, he has had a vocal contingent of critics.

Prusiner's hypothesis is that fatal brain maladies such as mad-cow disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease are caused not by viruses, bacteria, fungi, or some other mundane agent but by something startlingly new that he has discovered--mutant, rampaging proteins known as "prions," short for "proteinaceous infectious particles."