system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Is it possible to destroy prions?

Everything I've read seems to make them out as indestructible bringers of the apocalypse. they infect any animal they come into contact with, they can't be cooked away, they're hard to detect and we have no effective measure for sterilizing them. sooo can we get rid of them? or are they just going to accumulate forever?
gpt
Prions are proteins that are infectious via their affect on normal proteins (ie making more prion).  Sterilization of prions therefore requires denaturing their protein structure to a state where the prion is no longer able to induce abnormal protein folding.  The size and structure of prions make them resistant to proteases, heat, radiation and fixative (ie formaldehyde) treatments.  To destroy prions you need to use agent that will hydrolyze its peptide bonds and destroy it's tertiary structure.  The problem is that if you don't totally denature the prions they can actually fold back into confirmation and renature.  It's really like zombie-proteins, you need to go for the head-shot, and remember to double tap or they will reanimate and keep converting other proteins... 

On a small scale we can destroy prions on places like surgical instruments by prolonged immersion in strong sodium hydroxide or bleach, followed by high temperature autoclaving.  However this is not even always true.  In 1935 there were some 18000 sheep infected with scrapie-infected vaccines.  The scrapie prions had survived both week long formaldehyde treatment and autoclaving... This anecdotal story has since been confirmed experimentally.  Also some places are much more difficult to effectively sterilize than surgical instruments.  For example field where animals with prion infections once grazed cannot be autoclaved, and there are certainly issues with soaking an entire pasture in bleach...  Fields such as these have been left for over 40 years.  When cows return to the field, sure enough, they can become stricken with the disease (though the same can be said for many viral and bacterial agents).  

One sure fire way to destroy prions is incineration.   You simply burn the proteins, breaking all the peptide bonds, and pretty much turn them into carbon.  Ozone treatment is another possible method, but it's still being tested.