| Abstract: |
Neurodegenerative diseases are one of the major challenges for health care systems in the ageing societies of the Western World, with currently over 6 million people affected in the European Union. According to epidemiological data, only half of the patients suffering from e.g. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are currently identified, and then often only in the advanced stages of the disease. It is suspected that one of the main reasons for this is the lack of accuracy in the results of the biomarker assays used for identification and quantification. The most established biomarkers for AD are amyloid peptide 1-42 (A 1-42), total tau-protein, hyperphosphorylated tau-protein, and ratios thereof, in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Recent epidemiological evidence strongly suggests that several metal ions such as iron, zinc, copper, aluminium, mercury and lead are directly or indirectly involved in the development of AD as they can be found in the plaques formed in the brains of patients. Some metalloproteins might act as shuttles for metals to the brain such as the iron containing proteins transferrin and ferritin as well as albumin, which is known to unspecifically bind a great number of metals.
Potential reference measurement procedures (RMPs) for some of these metals and metalloproteins in CSF and brain homogenate have been developed within the project 15HLT02 “ReMiND”, a project in the framework of the European Metrology Programme for Innovation and Research (EMPIR). Most results of the project are presented in various presentations during this conference. RMPs are an important precondition to enable the establishment of a reference system, which provides reliable and comparable results for the biomarkers to clinical laboratories (and, thus, to attending physicians) as well as to research groups seeking to find a cure for neurodegenerative diseases. |
