Scientists at Northwestern University have become the first to
detect in living humans a biomarker associated with Alzheimer's
disease, a development that promises early intervention when
therapeutics may be most effective -- long before plaques and
tangles develop in the brain and dementia sets in. A study by
the Northwestern team shows that bio-bar-code amplification
(BCA) technology, which was developed at the University, can
detect in human cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) miniscule amounts of a
toxic protein that may be responsible for the early neurological
deterioration in Alzheimer's disease. The findings will be
published online the week of Jan. 31 by the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). "We have demonstrated the
first diagnostic test for the potential Alzheimer's biomarker
known as an ADDL," said Chad A. Mirkin, director of the
Institute for Nanotechnology at Northwestern and an author on
the PNAS paper. "This protein is only five nanometers wide and
present in cerebrospinal fluid at