HBDx-AD: A validated blood-based microRNA diagnostic kit for Alzheimer’s Disease
Description: Alzheimer’s Disease is a terrifying illness that progressively destroys thinking and memory skills,embodying one of the greatest fears for people over the age of 60. Unfortunately, drug companies havefailed to discover medicines which are effective against Alzheimer’s. One reason for this is that oncepeople start to experience problems, nerve cells are already dead and cannot be brought back. However,there is hope: if we step in early, we have a bigger chance of slowing and possibly reversing theprogression of disease. This requires detecting the earliest signs of Alzheimer’s in the brain, long beforenerve cells start to die. This can already be done by taking pictures of the brain at a high resolution orthrough a puncture into the spine. However, these procedures are very unpleasant and expensive so thatthey are not suitable for the many people at risk. Fortunately, although the brain is partially separatedfrom the rest of the body through the so-called blood brain barrier, it is in constant conversation withthe blood system. Therefore, we want to take advantage of this crosstalk and use a simple, inexpensiveand minimally-invasive blood test to find out if Alzheimer’s is developing in the brain. The moleculewe are using for this are called “microRNAs”. They are tiny giants of gene regulation that act asmolecular thermometers reflecting a person’s health status. We propose to use a combination of severalmicroRNAs as biomarkers for the early detection of Alzheimer’s. If we are successful, our approachcould be used as a simple tool for disease screening but also improve the drug discovery process ascompanies would now have a better way to identify patients and evaluate the effects of their drugs beforeit is too late.
Amount: $714,800
Funding type: research
Funder scheme: Diagnostics Accelerator
Start date: 2019-12-20
End date: 2022-11-15
Investigator: Bruno Steinkraus (lead)
Institutions: Hummingbird Diagnostics (Germany), Hummingbird Diagnostics GmbH
Funded outputs count: 0
Funder award ID: ADDF-20973586
OpenAlex ID: G9000601242