My lab in the department of Neurology of the Hadassah Medical Center is devoted to the study of neurodegenerative diseases caused by prions. Prions are aberrant forms of proteins which accumulate in the brains of affected subjects in a protease resistant conformation. In this context, we are specifically involved in the investigation of prion diseases resulting from mutations in the prion protein such as the E200K PrP mutation prevalent among Jews of Libyan origin. In recent years we have investigated genetic prion diseases in a transgenic mouse model we have created in the lab, TgMHu2ME199K. These mice are born healthy, start to develop disease signs months thereafter   and died of a neurodegenerative condition at about one year of age. These mice are now the focus of intense research to study the mechanism, early diagnosis and prophylactic treatment for subjects at risk of developing prion diseases as well as other neurodegenerative diseases.