New blood test to detect Alzheimer’s & cancer

A blood test that is used for antibodies which is a protein produced by the immune system may soon be used to detect Alzheimer’s and other diseases including some forms of cancer.

Detecting the Alzheimer's via antibodies would be a simpler and less invasive method of diagnosing the disease.

Typically, in developing blood test for diseases, researchers searched for antigens that are a protein secreted from a virus, bacteria, from some cancerous cells or in neurological conditions like Alzheimer’s that set off an immune response. 

Only after identifying the antigen, the researchers would be able to search for antibodies or trace the signs that the immune system that has picked up and mounted a response.

In Alzheimer's, or in a disease such as cancer, there is quite difficult to find out the antigens. 

But researchers are doing ‘high throughput’ screening using thousands of synthetic molecules known as peptoids that could be bind with the antibodies. 

The synthetic molecule in effect acted as attractive for the antibiotics that enable the researchers to spot biomarkers in the blood unique to those with Alzheimer's.