Evaluation of a plasma protein panel as a compound biomarker for Alzheimers disease

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Alzheimer?s disease is one of the most common and devastating of diseases of the elderly. As the population ages then the costs, already larger than cancer and heart disease combined, are set to rise substantially. Progress is being made in understanding the disease pathogenesis with the first disease modifying trials being reported this year. However, despite this progress, Alzheimer?s remains difficult to diagnose in the early stages, impossible to predict and even monitoring disease progression is difficult and subject to day to day variation and other sources of error. One way of overcoming these problems is the use of tests or biomarkers. Many such tests in development are dependent on access to sophisticated brain scanning or spinal fluid. We have taken an alternative approach in seeking blood based biomarkers. Studies in our laboratories over the past five years have revealed a set of markers that differ between Alzheimer?s patients and other elderly people. We propose now to develop these further into a test and then to trial this test on a large number of people. We will determine in this way, whether these proteins, together or separately, do function as a test in Alzheimer?s disease either for early diagnosis, for prediction of dementia or for monitoring disease progression. If they do, and the evidence so far is promising, then this has the potential to substantially improve diagnosis and to make trials of drugs for Alzheimer?s faster and more accurate to perform.