Smart probes for ex vivo assay-based early prediction of Alzheimer disease

Alzheimer disease is becoming one of the leading problems of modern medicine, affecting patients, their families and draining national health care budgets worldwide. According to predictions, in the near future, Alzheimer disease shall be inevitable for more than one third of the population aged over 65 years. Development of a reliable diagnostic tool for early diagnosis of Alzheimer disease is therefore paramount for timely intervention. Current strategies are not applicable for population screening. Reliable, minimally invasive ex vivo assays, allowing detection and quantification of disease markers in bodily fluids (e.g. blood) would be of immense value. Our aim is to design small, fluorescent molecules that bind to aggregates of amyloid beta (Aß), protein tau (Tau), and other biomarkers of Alzheimer disease and can be detected by fluorescence-based spectroscopic methods in bodily fluids. Molecules that convey changes in their environments, i.e. polarity and pH, to the optical properties would enable discrimination between different biomolecules. Use of these smart probes in ex vivo fluorescence assay would provide qualitative and quantitative information on multiple targets in one sample. Knowledge gained in this work could inform design of molecules to bind to biomarkers of other diseases. This research will pave a path to widely applicable protocol for early prediction of neurodegenerative disorders, cancers, infectious diseases and other conditions that have characteristic biomarkers in biofluids.