Jonas Folke
Breaking the code of blood-based alpha-synuclein seeding amplification
Accurate and early diagnosis is crucial for effectively treating Parkinsonian patients. Current methods often require extensive testing, scans, or invasive spinal taps, especially in complex cases. But what if Parkinson鈥檚 and related atypical disorders could be identified with just a drop of blood?
These diseases are linked to issues with a protein called alpha-synuclein (aSyn), which can misfold and clump together, triggering harmful changes in the brain years before symptoms appear. A promising test, the aSyn-seeding amplification assay, has detected these misfolded clumps in cerebrospinal fluid and brain tissue, but developing a blood test has been challenging.
This project aims to create a simple blood test by targeting non-conventional blood components and applying nanoparticles to detect clumping, enabling accurate, non-invasive diagnosis at early stages of the disease.
