An interdisciplinary team of scientists at the University of
Newcastle has shown the potential of a simple blood-based test
to identify people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease,
before any symptoms appear. The team of four* spent a year
studying data from the international Alzheimer’s Disease
Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database, the most comprehensive
collection of Alzheimer’s data in the world. The Newcastle team
assessed the levels of 190 proteins in blood from 566 people
with either Alzheimer’s Disease, mild cognitive impairment or
normal cognition and showed that measuring a panel of 11
proteins in blood can provide a predictive test with more than
85 per cent accuracy. Monitoring the change in blood protein
levels over time could increase accuracy above 90 per cent. The
study was funded by the University of Newcastle and the Hunter
Medical Research Institute, and its findings are published today
in the prestigious PLoS ONE journal. Senior author Professor
Pablo Moscato said the results were