An Immuno-Infrared Sensor Detects Preclinical Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Disease by Protein Misfolding.

The immuno-infrared sensor (iRS) detects misfolding of biomarker proteins in blood and provides thereby a very early and easily accessible diagnosis of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. Only in early stages recently approved therapeutic Alzheimer's drugs work efficiently. In symptom-free stages, lifestyle change can largely delay the disease progression, and the drugs may even block the disease progression. Population screening by a simple blood test will therefore be a game changer in the fight against neurodegenerative diseases. This was made possible by the new iRS platform. In the iRS platform, antibodies as catcher molecules concentrate the target protein biomarker on the functionalized attenuated total reflection crystal surface. A blocking layer prevents unspecific binding. A quantum cascade laser is used to measure the amide I absorbance maximum as a readout, indicating the degree of the biomarker misfolding and thereby disease progression.