Byron W. Caughey, Ph.D.

Senior Investigator

TSE / Prion Biochemistry Section

NIAID/DIR

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Rocky Mountain Laboratories
Building 2, Room 2106
903 South 4th Street
Hamilton, MT 59840

406-363-9264

bcaughey@niaid.nih.gov

Research Topics

Major Areas of Research

  • TSEs (prion diseases)
  • Prion structure, amplification and detection, and disease prevention and therapeutics
  • Prion protein functions and cell biology
  • Protein-folding diseases

Biography

Dr. Caughey received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1985 and completed postdoctoral studies in pharmacology at Duke University Medical Center from 1985 to 1986. He has conducted TSE/prion research in the Laboratory of Persistent Viral Diseases since 1986. He became a tenured senior investigator in 1994. Dr. Caughey is also an editor for the Journal of Virology and a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology.

Selected Publications

  1. Orrú CD, Vaughan DP, Vijiaratnam N, Real R, Martinez-Carrasco A, Fumi R, Jensen MT, Hodgson M, Girges C, Gil-Martinez AL, Stafford EJ, Wu L, Lerche S, Wurster I, Groveman BR, Hughson AG, Ansorge O, Quaegebeur A, Allinson KSJ, Warner TT, Jaunmuktane Z, Misbahuddin A, Leigh PN, Ghosh BCP, Bhatia KP, Church A, Kobylecki C, Hu MTM, Rowe JB, Parchi P, Brockmann K, Foltynie T, Morris HR, Caughey B, Jabbari E. Diagnostic and prognostic value of α-synuclein seed amplification assay kinetic measures in Parkinson's disease: a longitudinal cohort study. Lancet Neurol. 2025;24(7):580-590.
  2. Alam P, Hoyt F, Artikis E, Soukup J, Hughson AG, Schwartz CL, Barbian K, Miller MW, Race B, Caughey B. Cryo-EM structure of a natural prion: chronic wasting disease fibrils from deer. Acta Neuropathol. 2024;148(1):56.
  3. Kraus A, Hoyt F, Schwartz CL, Hansen B, Artikis E, Hughson AG, Raymond GJ, Race B, Baron GS, Caughey B. High-resolution structure and strain comparison of infectious mammalian prions. Mol Cell. 2021;81(21):4540-4551.e6.
  4. Kraus A, Saijo E, Metrick MA 2nd, Newell K, Sigurdson CJ, Zanusso G, Ghetti B, Caughey B. Seeding selectivity and ultrasensitive detection of tau aggregate conformers of Alzheimer disease. Acta Neuropathol. 2019;137(4):585-598.
  5. Orrú CD, Bongianni M, Tonoli G, Ferrari S, Hughson AG, Groveman BR, Fiorini M, Pocchiari M, Monaco S, Caughey B, Zanusso G. A test for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease using nasal brushings. N Engl J Med. 2014;371(6):519-29.

Related Scientific Focus Areas

This page was last updated on Wednesday, August 13, 2025