Today, Alzheimer's is still diagnosed late, when there are obvious symptoms and after invasive and expensive tests. Detecting it earlier and through a blood test will allow new drugs to be tested and improve the chances of success of treatments aimed at stopping Alzheimer's in its earliest stages.
To do this, the Barcelonaβeta Brain Research Center (BBRC), a research centre of the Pasqual Maragall Foundation, is launching the most cutting-edge laboratory in Spain and one of the most sophisticated in the world, dedicated to making it possible, in the future, to detect Alzheimer's early through a simple blood test, a diagnostic test that would help neurologists in their work of detecting the disease.
However, in order to make progress in this field of research, ultra-sensitive machinery with cutting-edge technology is needed, which costs €150,000. To make the project a reality, the Pasqual Maragall Foundation has launched a campaign to raise funds to equip the new Fluid Biomarkers and Translational Neurology laboratory at the BBRC with cutting-edge technology.
As explained by the Dr. Marc Suarez-Calvet, head of the Fluid Biomarkers and Translational Neurology group at the BBRC, “Blood biomarkers are one of the great discoveries in Alzheimer's research in recent years, and at the BBRC we are directly involved in their study in order to be able to apply them in routine clinical practice. Currently, and thanks to the reference test, the lumbar puncture, we compare the results to see their effectiveness. Our goal is to ensure that in the future the detection of Alzheimer's is early, easy and accessible even in people without symptoms."
Recently, Dr. Suárez-Calvet's team, with the support of the “la Caixa” Foundation, detected that glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) is a very precise biomarker for diagnosing the initial stages of Alzheimer's disease in the blood. This discovery, still in the research phase, will improve the diagnostic precision of the preclinical phase of Alzheimer's through a blood test, combining the detection of the GFAP biomarker with other recently discovered ones.
“All these recent scientific advances bring us closer to the end of Alzheimer's. In the new laboratory of the Pasqual Maragall Foundation, Translational research to develop biomarkers, with the aim of discovering new therapeutic targets and providing a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms of Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases”, concludes the Dr. Arcadi Navarro, Director of the Pasqual Maragall Foundation.
“A news story to remember”
The fundraising campaign “A news to remember' It is based on a video that tells the story of four relatives of people with Alzheimer's and focuses on a unique characteristic of these patients: their inability to remember recent events in their lives, but their memory to recall important news from their past.
Under this argument, the campaign seeks to raise funds to achieve a headline that will never be forgotten: creating the most cutting-edge laboratory in Spain to detect Alzheimer's disease early.
