Pilot study shows peripheral blood-based gene expression assay can be employed to discriminate patients with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease
Norwegian life sciences company DiaGenic announced it had presented a poster on discriminatory assays for Parkinson and Alzheimer's diseases at the European Regional Meeting of the International Psychogeriatric Association in Lisbon.
The study employed a peripheral blood-based assay with a specific Alzheimer's gene expression signature developed using DiaGenic's patented method.
Researchers found that 19 out of 20 Parkinson-diagnosed patients could be successfully discriminated from Alzheimer's sufferers.
Furthermore, a specific gene expression signature for Parkinson was also identified.
The study is part of a larger follow-on study validating DiaGenic's Alzheimer's gene expression assay on an ABI microarray platform, the results of which will be presented at the Icad in Madrid in July 2006.
"These findings showing that our blood-based gene expression assay approach can also be applied to Parkinson disease is extremely encouraging," said Anders Loenneborg, CEO, DiaGenic.
"Alzheimer's and Parkinson have different underlying pathologies, but overlapping clinical profiles as many PD patients will also develop dementia".
"Our goal is develop simple blood-based tests that will enable physicians to discriminate between patients at an early stage, since an increasing number of studies show that early therapeutic intervention can make a significant difference in improving quality of life." DiaGenic received a US patent in 2004 for using gene expression signatures from peripheral blood cells to diagnose Alzheimer's disease (US patent: 6,720,138).
