Science Careers

Phosphorylated tau (p-Tau), amyloid-beta (Ab) 42/40, glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), and neurofilament light (NfL) are current key Alzheimer’s disease (AD) blood-based biomarkers. Interpreting results of the four biomarkers simultaneously in a clinical context is challenging due to issues such as tissue sample size, cost, and timing. A decision algorithm could aid in the interpretation, tailored to clinically relevant questions: 1) identify positive amyloid status among preclinical and prodromal AD stages, 2) discriminate AD-dementia from frontotemporal dementia (FTD), and 3) characterize AD-dementia from dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB).

This webinar will discuss the development and validation of such an interpretation tool and demonstrate that the combination of p-Tau 181, GFAP, and NfL in plasma could support decision making in different clinical contexts and serve as a tool to support both detection and differential diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.

During this webinar, participants will:

• Learn about current and upcoming blood-based biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease and other neuropsychiatric syndromes
• Gain insight on how multiple biomarkers are needed to sort out the complexities of AD, co-pathologies, and non-AD dementias
• Hear about the advantages and disadvantages of using these biomarkers for research and clinical correlations
• Have an opportunity to ask questions during the live broadcast

This webinar will last for approximately 60 minutes.

Over the past 20 years, researchers have developed and helped commercialize blood tests for Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Yet only half of patients with neurodegenerative diseases end up with an AD diagnosis. For the rest, no tests are available to determine which underlying disease is responsible for failing memory or other cognitive issues. Previous attempts to develop biomarkers for other types of dementia, such as frontotemperal dementia or Lewy body dementia, have been unsuccessful. This is likely because changes to the tissue in these diseases are more elusive in bodily fluids (cerebrospinal fluid, blood).

Taking up the search for new biomarkers, are two Swedish researchers, Kaj Blennow and Henrik Zetterberg , both from the University of Gothenburg. These researchers have hatched a 5-year plan to discover biomarkers for these alternative dementias. Using highly sensitive measuring methods in mass spectrometry, immunochemistry, and a large biobank that contains post-mortem brain samples from patients who had dementia, they investigate the activation of astrocytes and microglia—brain cells that have recently been found to play a more important role in dementia progression than previously thought. Previous research has given them good leads: several candidate biomarkers include alpha-synuclein for Lewy body dementia and Parkinson's-like conditions.

During this webinar, the speakers will:

• Explain how blood-based biomarkers for neurodegenerative dementias are discovered
• Discuss the promises and pitfalls of using these biomarkers for diagnosis
• Recommend best practices for discovering biomarkers
• Answer questions during the live broadcast.

This webinar will last for approximately 60 minutes.

Precision medicine is critically dependent on accurate methods for diagnosing and staging disease and predicting drug response. Immunohistochemistry using antibodies to immunostain tissue remains the gold standard diagnostic method in cancer pathology laboratories. However, recently research methods using immunofluorescence (IF) have evolved to enable highly multiplexed tissue imaging. Researchers combine this robust technique with molecular techniques to enhance research studies and clinical practice with precise, spatially resolved single-cell data that supports genomics data. While the technology might have changed, certain aspects of the technique remain rooted in the same well-established principles of good experimental setup, which ensures delivery of accurate and reliable results. 

This panel webinar with give you an overview of how oncology researchers use many techniques in concert with IF and multiplex immunostaining to answer their hypotheses.

Lastly, we will discuss the potential impact of AI on IF/multiplexing and where the field is heading.

During this webinar, viewers will:

• Learn about developments in immunofluorescence (IF) and multiplex imaging techniques in cancer research
• Discuss how AI will become relevant to IF in clinical settings
• Hear about the latest trends and projections for cancer research, including how combinations of techniques can support findings
• Have an opportunity to ask questions during the live broadcast.

This webinar will last for approximately 60 minutes.