Deer hunters have lost a friend they might not have known they had. Deer & Deer Hunting magazine regrets to report that pioneering medical pathologist and CWD researcher Frank Bastian of New Orleans, Louisiana, passed away on Dec. 14, 2025, at the age of 86. He earned his medical degree from the University of Saskatchewan and completed his residency at Duke University.
A Credible Researcher
Beginning in the 1970s, he focused his research on Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD, a human variant of Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy, or TSE). He became an early and influential voice in the field. In 1991, Dr. Bastian exhibited his credibility in the field by publishing research on TSE diseases in a medical text titled Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease and Other Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies. In his later years, Dr. Bastian became interested in Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), the cervid variant of TSE diseases.
I have spoken with Dr. Bastian many times, though we have never met in person. In our first conversation back in 2019, he told me that he is most concerned with TSE disease in humans and animals in the human food chain. In performing thousands of autopsies on people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease he sometimes noticed a novel spiroplasma bacteria in slides of brain tissue. Further investigation revealed that these patients had been misdiagnosed. They actually had CJD.
Bastian’s Place in CWD Research
We’ve heard the word “prion,” a word coined to identify misfolded proteins associated with TSE diseases, but prion researchers are not clear on the specific causal mechanism between the prion and the disease. Stanley B. Prusiner won a 1997 Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering that link. Dr. Bastian fully agreed that a link between prions and TSE diseases exists, but he also believed the prion is a marker for TSE, and not the cause. Dr. Bastian’s question was “What prompts prions to misfold or mutate?” He believed the spiroplasma bacteria he found in CJD patients plays that role.
Regarding CWD research, some of Dr. Bastian’s ideas have been misrepresented as promises to the deer world. In that first interview, which led to an article for Deer & Deer Hunting, I offered him a platform where he could speak for himself rather than through those who either backed or disputed his work.
The last time I spoke with Dr. Bastian (Aug. 11, 2025), I told him deer hunters expect wildlife biologists to find a solution to CWD, but often forget that CWD is one of many TSE diseases including CJD (and other human variants), Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (commonly called mad cow disease), sheep scrapie (which has been recognized for at least 300 years), and more. He responded that wildlife biologists will not solve CWD; it will be solved by micro pathologists, who are foundational to wildlife disease research and supportive of field work.
Breakthrough Diagnostic Test
We have become accustomed to hearing that no test exists for diagnosing CWD or other TSE diseases in a living animal or person, and the ability to test a live specimen would be a breakthrough. Dr. Bastian has created that test and on May 20, 2025, the United States Patent and Trademark Office granted him a patent for “Live Tests for Diagnosis of Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy in Animals and Humans” (U.S. Patent Number: 12,306,186).
Having developed a live test for TSE diseases, Bastian was confident his work would lead to a vaccine and ultimately a cure for captive cervids. Delivering a vaccine or a cure to free-ranging wild deer herds, however, will be an enormous challenge for wildlife field biologists. He also mentioned his appreciation that state wildlife departments are beginning to value his work.
Upon learning of Dr. Bastian’s passing, I spoke with his daughter who said his research will go on through his capable assistants. We mourn the passing of Dr. Frank Bastian who remained energetically engaged in scientific inquiry until the end of his life. We extend sympathy to his family, friends, and colleagues. As family and colleagues continue his research, we hope they find a solution to CWD and other TSE diseases.
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Steve Sorensen is a longtime, award-winning contributor to Deer & Deer Hunting, and speaks frequently at sportsman’s dinners.
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