Meet the editor

In 2005, Ivo Nikolaev Sirakov graduated in Veterinary Medicine in Sofia and in 2012, he received his PhD degree at the Bulgarian Food Safety Agency. He works as an assistant and Assistant Professor at the NRL "TSE" where he is responsible for diagnosis of TSEs by WB, IHC, and ELISA methods; sequencing of the sheep and goat prion protein gene; and a number of training programs that he has led in reference laboratories in the EU. He has par-

ticipated as a government expert in discussions on TSE-related legislation in the EC. From 2013 to 2015, he was head of the NRL "Enzootic Bovine Leukosis" and a lecturer at the Medical University of Sofia. Since 2015, he works as an assistant and Head Assistant Professor at Department of "Medical Microbiology", MU -Sofia.

**Chapter 1 1**

**Chapter 2 7**

**Chapter 3 45**

**Chapter 4 57**

Introductory Chapter: Prions *by Ivo Nikolaev Sirakov*

Contents

Prion Proteins and Neuronal Death in the Cerebellum

Prion Protein Strain Diversity and Disease Pathology *by Saima Zafar, Neelam Younas, Mohsin Shafiq and Inga Zerr*

*by Keiji Uchiyama and Suehiro Sakaguchi*

*by Audrey Ragagnin, Qili Wang, Aurélie Guillemain, Siaka Dole,*

*Nicolas Vitale, Stéphane Gasman, Nancy Grant and Yannick Bailly*

A Molecular Mechanism for Abnormal Prion Protein Accumulation

*Anne-Sophie Wilding, Valérie Demais, Cathy Royer, Anne-Marie Haeberlé,* 
