April 11th marks World Parkinson’s Day, which aims to spread awareness for the millions of patients with Parkinson’s.
Parkinson’s is the fastest growing neurological disease and there currently is no cure. One of the main challenges in developing effective treatments for Parkinson’s disease is the need to diagnose patients early, identify those with rapid disease progression, and monitor treatment response through reliable indicators.
Nordic Bioscience has developed a blood-based biomarker targeting a pathological fragment of alpha-synuclein cleaved by Calpain-1, which aggregates into fibrils as part of the disease process. This biomarker has been shown to be upregulated in patients with Parkinson’s disease. Since this pathological fragment is generated before fibril aggregation occurs, we can identify patients early.
In our paper published in Scientific Reports, we describe the development and potential of this biomarker in two clinical cohorts of patients with Parkinson’s Disease.