Neurodegenerative diseases are a broad collection of diseases, which are all characterized by loss of neuronal function. That includes (but not limited to) Alzheimer’s disease, frontotemporal dementia, and Parkinson’s disease to which biomarkers will be described on the below page. One of the primary goals is to identify active neurodegeneration and find out if treatment will halt or slow that process. Our biomarkers can do that.

In a healthy brain, α-synuclein supports neuronal communication. However, in Parkinson’s, this protein undergoes abnormal processing, driven partly by the enzyme Calpain-1, which cleaves α-synuclein into smaller, altered fragments. This early cleavage disrupts cellular function and promotes the formation of toxic aggregates, which accumulate, kill neurons, and drive disease progression.