A research chemist at the National Animal Disease Center (NADC) in Ames has made an important advancement in the battle against the deadly mad cow disease.

Dr. Mary Jo Schmerr, who began research on the disease five years ago, said she devised a test to detect the disease in blood.

“Prior to this time, no one has been able to do that,” she said.

Schmerr said the disease was first detected in 1986 in the United Kingdom, and since then it has killed about 200,000 cattle.

Dr. Keith Murray, laboratory director for NADC, said the disease was spread in the U.K. and parts of Europe, but it has not yet appeared in the United States.

While it is primarily a disease affecting animals, there have been human victims, Schmerr said.

“Forty-seven or 48 people have died from the same agent that caused the cow disease,” she said.

The disease takes about five years to affect sheep or cattle, Schmerr said, but in humans, it can take as long as 10 to 15 years to be fatal.

Mad cow disease, unlike most epidemics, is not a bacteria, virus or fungus, but a protein, she said.

“All animals have this protein in the neurons of their brains,” Schmerr said.

The disease is transmitted through oral feeding and is known to transmit through the eye membranes as well, she said.

In Europe, it was spread because farmers would grind up unused parts of dead animals and feed them to living animals, Schmerr said. If they fed parts of an infected animal to another animal, it would become infected as well.

Schmerr said the discovery will help farmers detect the disease before it has the chance to spread.

“Mostly, I think it’s a very promising asset and will contribute to the solving of the problem that is caused by the disease,” she said.

Murray said there is no obvious possibility for a cure, but “we have made a big initial breakthrough and we’re off to a very good start.”