Alzheimer’s could be diagnosed with common blood test

The progressive dementia of Alzheimer’s disease affects some 35 million people worldwide and is expected to affect 115 million by 2050, yet currently it is not possible to detect the disease before it has caused loss of memory and function. Even then, the tests available are invasive and/or expensive.

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The quest to develop a simple blood test for Alzheimer’s is therefore top priority. As ISRAEL21c reported in December last year, the Israeli company NeuroQuest is working with the University of California-San Diego on clinical validation trials of its blood test for very early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, based on award-winning research led by Prof. Michal Schwartz of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot. Now, researchers from three Israeli institutions –Tel Aviv University, Technion and Rambam Medical Center in Haifa — and from Harvard University have published a study in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease that proposes testing a novel biomarker in the blood for cognitive aging and Alzheimer’s disease. The marker, called activity-dependent neuroprotective protein (ADNP), is essential for brain formation and cognitive function. More...

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