Scientists suspect that crippling diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Lou Gehrig's disease may have a pathology similar to that of bovine spongiform encephalopathy. While BSE is notorious for its insidious march, spreading its prions among normal cells and destroying their ability to function, the other diseases weren't thought to follow a similar pattern. However, University of Pennsylvania researchers have demonstrated that a synthetic Parkinson's protein introduced to mice spread much like the prions of BSE. The group is now trying to identify antibody therapies that could halt the spread of deformed proteins.