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Professor Simon Hawke

Professor
Medicine, Central Clinical School

M02 - Mallet Street Campus
The University of Sydney
NSW 2006 Australia

T:+61 2 9351 0846
F:+61 2 9114 4040
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Biographical details

Prion diseases such as Creutzfeldt-Jacob diseases in humans and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or Mad Cow Disease) in cattle are fatal neurodegenerativie disorders without effective treatment. Underlying these disorders is the transformation of normal cellular protein into infections proteins or prions. Prof Hawke and his colleagues are attempting to harness the immune system to inhibit this transformation and the replication of prions. Already, they have shown that prion replication outside the brain can be substantially inhibited by passively transferring monoclonal antibodies specific for prion protein. Studies are in progress aiming to control replication in the central nervous system.

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Keywords

Blood brain barrier; Immunology; Clinical neurology; Prion diseases; Multiple sclerosis

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Publications

2010 | 2009 | 2007 | 2006

2010

  
  • Tayebi, M., David, M., Bate, C., Jones, D., Taylor, W., Morton, R., Pollard, J., Hawke, S. Epitope specific anti-prion antibodies up-regulate apolipoprotein e and disrupt membrane cholesterol homeostasis. The Journal of general virology. 2010; 91:3105-15. [Abstract]

2009

  
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  • Tayebi, M., Collinge, J., Hawke, S. Unswitched immunoglobulin M response prolongs mouse survival in prion disease. The Journal of general virology. 2009; 90:777-782. [Abstract]

2007

  
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  • Khalili-Shirazi, A., Kaisar, M., Mallinson, G., Jones, S., Bhelt, D., Fraser, C., Clarke, A., Hawke, S., Jackson, G., Collinge, J. Beta-PrP form of human prion protein stimulates production of monoclonal antibodies to epitope 91-110 that recognise native PrPSc. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta. 2007; 1774:1438-1450. [Abstract]
  • Tayebi, M., Bate, C., Hawke, S., Williams, A. A role for B lymphocytes in anti-infective prion therapies?. Expert review of anti-infective therapy. 2007; 5:631-638. [Abstract]

2006

  
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  • Tayebi, M., Hawke, S. Antibody-mediated neuronal apoptosis: therapeutic implications for prion diseases. Immunology letters. 2006; 105:123-6. [Abstract]