The identification of biomarkers in blood for neurological disorders faces a further level of difficulty given the presence of the brain blood barrier (BBB). Proteins are degraded into very small peptides prior to clearance from the brain through the BBB into the circulatory system. Many metabolites also must be metabolized prior to passage through the BBB. These peptides and metabolites may exist primarily in blood adhered to serum albumin prior to further breakdown. This is why we developed the Aptamarker™ platform. There was a need to develop a system that would be able to characterize the biomarkers that actually exist in blood as a function of neurological disease.
Our focus within neurology to date has been on the prediction of brain amyloid status based on blood based biomarkers. This successful application is more fully described in the Aptamarker™ platform section of this website. We are currently working to extend the validation of this proof of principle to 1,000 individuals in collaboration with both the INSIGHT-PreAD study (France) and the AIBL cohort (Australia). In addition, we are developing the Aptamarker™ platform for the prediction of the rate of amyloid accumulation, the rate of disease progression, individual tolerance to amyloid, brain tau status, and rate of tau accumulation.
Our intent is to use our Aptamarker™ platform to assist pharma companies to obtain clinical approval for effective therapeutic treatments for neurological diseases. We can provide support as follows;
- Prediction of brain amyloid status as a means of pre-screening clinical enrollees prior to PET scans.
- Prediction of rate of disease progression in order to move beyond the comparison of means between treated and non-treated to a normalization for individual effect.
- Stratification of individuals prior to trial enrollment
- Identification of Aptamarkers™ that can be used to characterize subjects that respond to a specific treatment.
We are interested in expanding these neurological applications beyond Alzheimer’s disease with other neurological pathologies. Please contact us, if you have an interest in a collaboration.