Italy is hosting the third annual edition of NeuroPrion, the leading international forum on mad cow and similar new diseases caused by mysterious bodies called prions .
Among the top names at the Turin event is Stanley B.Prusiner, whose identification of prions in 1997 earned him the Nobel Prize for Medicine .
He will update the conference on work in progress on Wednesday .
NeuroPrion brings together more than 1,000 experts from 52 research institutes in some 20 countries .
As well as trying to find a cure for mad cow disease, participants are looking at new ways of preventing outbreaks, organisers say .
"Mad cow disease has not been vanquished, as has been shown by the recent cases in Japan, the United States and Canada," they stress .
"There is also a risk that it may find new ways of spreading, via the bloodstream for example" .
The conference will examine possible new variants of mad cow and the risk of other prion diseases crossing the species divide from animal to man .
It will also focus on the possibility of pre-clinical tests .
The mad cow crisis cost Europe more than 90 billion euros but only 90 million euros has been spent in research on its causes and possible cures .
Italy had only six cases this year compared to 50 when the epidemic was at its height in 2001 .
"But that's no reason to let our guard slip," said Maria Caramelli of Turin's Animal Disease Institute, Italy's top mad cow lab .
