Opportunities and challenges of blood-based biomarkers in Alzheimer's disease

15 Dec 2021
12:00 PM ET
Speakers:Lei Liu, M.D., Ph.D,Anitaben Tailor, Ph.D.
Moderator:Jackie Oberst, Ph.D.

Dec

2021

12:00

Lei Liu, M.D., Ph.DSpeaker

Anitaben Tailor, Ph.D.Speaker

Jackie Oberst, Ph.D.Moderator

This webinar is brought to you by the Science/AAAS Custom Publishing Office.

Identifying more sensitive biomarker tests for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is an unmet medical need. It is key in the global efforts to validate disease-modifying AD therapeutics and identify appropriate recipients in clinical trials once more therapies are approved. Fluid biomarkers, especially plasma-based biomarkers, become the most attractive ones as they are non-invasive, relatively economical, and easy to obtain. Emerging blood biomarkers, including amyloid β monomers, oligomers, tau/p-tau, neurofilament light chain, and inflammatory factors, are gathering tremendous research interest. However, there are also challenges in developing blood biomarkers for neurological disease with specificity, precision, and reproducibility. First, biologically, there could be a tiny amount of proteins of the central nervous system entering into the peripheral bloodstream. Second, biochemically, the enriched and complex matrix of human blood strongly interferes with the detection system we use for protein identification and quantification. Third, technically, it is critical to establish a system with high reliability that is also capable of high throughput. Our expert speakers will discuss strategies in developing an ultrasensitive immunoassay* to precisely measure oligomeric amyloid β in human plasma.

During the webinar, the viewers will:

Obtain insights into blood-based biomarkers used in neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease
Discover the challenges and opportunities behind creating blood-based biomarker immunoassays
Be able to ask questions during the live broadcast.

This webinar will last for approximately 60 minutes.

*For Research Use Only. Not For Use In Diagnostic Procedures.

SPEAKER BIOS

Lei Liu, M.D., Ph.D

Harvard Medical School
Boston, MA

Lei Liu, M.D., Ph.D., studied the neurochemistry of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) at the Shiga University of Medical Science (Otsu, Japan) and completed his Ph.D. thesis in the lab of Dr. Masaki Nishimura. During his graduate research, which involved the characterization of a novel endogenous regulator of the AD-relevant γ-secretase complex, Lei was awarded the best basic research of the year in 2014 by the Japan Society for Dementia Research and the Takeda Medical Research Award in 2015 for his work on γ-secretase. Following his research interest in dementia, he joined the lab of Dr. Dennis Selkoe at Harvard Medical School/Brigham and Women’s Hospital in late 2016, where he currently works as an Assistant Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. He has published many significant peer-reviewed research articles on the enzymology involved in AD pathogenesis in prestigious journals, such as Journal of Cell Biology, Nature Communications, Alzheimer’s & Dementia, Neuron, and Journal of Biological Chemistry.

In addition to basic molecular biology research, he is also an expert in antibody biology and immunoassay development. His ongoing work on plasma biomarkers in AD is built on multiple ultrasensitive and unique assays to detect up to fg/mL AD-relevant proteins in as little as 10 µL of human plasma. His recent development, an immunoassay to sensitively and specifically quantify the oligomeric state of amyloid-β (oAβ), is the first method that has been thoroughly validated for human plasma to monitor Aβ dynamics in the peripheral blood. This could serve as a critical tool to monitor AD stages and therapeutic interventions. His research goal is to bridge basic research to clinical applications and bring real-life impacts on patient treatments and quality of life.

Anitaben Tailor, Ph.D.

MilliporeSigma
Burlington, MA

Dr. Tailor has over 10 years of immunoassay platform experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. Anita earned her Master’s in Pharmacology at Kings College, London, and then went on to do her Ph.D. in Biochemical Immunopharmacology at the University of London, UK. She was a postdoctoral fellow in physiology and pharmacology at LSU Health Sciences, followed by faculty positions at Johns Hopkins and the U.S. National Institutes of Health. In 2009, Anita moved into industry as a Field Application Scientist for Meso Scale Diagnostics and Singulex (MilliporeSigma). Then in 2016, Anita was appointed the global role of SMC™ Technology and Application Lead within the Life Science Division at MilliporeSigma, where she led multiple teams globally on the utility of SMC™ technology as a bioanalytical tool for multiple research applications within industry and academia. More recently, Anita joined the global Biology Technical Marketing group, focusing on the immunoassay portfolio within pharma and contract research organizations.

MODERATOR BIO

Jackie Oberst, Ph.D.

Science/AAAS
Washington, DC

Dr. Oberst did her undergraduate training at the University of Maryland, College Park, and her Ph.D. in Tumor Biology at Georgetown University, Washington D.C. She combined her interests in science and writing by pursuing an M.A. in Journalism from the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park. Dr. Oberst joined Science/AAAS in 2016 as the Assistant Editor for Custom Publishing. Before then she worked at Nature magazine, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, The Endocrine Society, and the National Institutes of Mental Health.

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