Non-invasive Biomarkers of Alzheimer’s Disease

The future of human health resides in innovative platforms such as implantable biosensors and point-of-care devices that can extract real time information on the health status of an individual. Those platforms can be achieved through the development and validation of novel biomarkers of health and well-being using tissues that consumers can self-collect in a non-invasive manner. Saliva is one of the easiest tissues to self-collect non-invasively but it is the least explored for biomedical purposes.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia. In clinical practice, patients with AD are not usually identified until the disease reaches an advanced stage of cognitive impairment. Therefore, a minimally invasive and affordable approach is highly desirable to identify individuals of increased risk for AD so that early preventative strategies can be put into place. The research aims at discovering markers for early detection of AD risk using saliva and will be validated against blood biomarkers in the South Australian Neurodegenerative Disease (SAND) study.

 

AIMS

  • Discovering and/or validating novel biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease in saliva.
  • Enabling improved health surveillance using a non-invasively self-collected tissue.
  • Developing biosensor for real time detection and quantification of biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease.
  • Opportunity of adaptation of those biosensors for detection of cancer and metabolic disease biomarkers

 

 

 

TEAM MEMBERS:

Principal Research Scientist

Research Scientist

Experimental Scientist