{"id":631309,"date":"2026-10-15T11:12:18","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T11:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/631309\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T11:12:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T11:12:18","slug":"blood-sensor-detects-parkinsons-associated-proteins-in-40-minutes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/631309\/","title":{"rendered":"Blood sensor detects Parkinson\u2019s-associated proteins in 40 minutes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>pharmafile | October 15, 2026 | News story |  |\u00a0\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/pharmafile.com\/therapeuticareas\/diagnostics\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Diagnostics<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/pharmafile.com\/therapeuticareas\/haematology\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Haematology<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/pharmafile.com\/tag\/neurological-diseases\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Neurological Diseases<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/pharmafile.com\/therapeuticareas\/neurology\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Neurology<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/pharmafile.com\/tag\/parkinsons-disease\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Parkinson\u2019s disease<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/pharmafile.com\/tag\/blood-testing\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">blood testing<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/pharmafile.com\/tag\/sleep-disorder\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">sleep disorder<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Researchers at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) and the University of Oxford have developed a blood-based electronic sensor capable of detecting three forms of alpha-synuclein associated with Parkinson\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The technology, described in Science Advances, uses a transistor-based sensor to amplify biological signals, allowing the three protein forms to be measured simultaneously within 40 minutes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The approach first isolates small packages released by nerve cells into the bloodstream before analysing their protein contents. Detecting alpha-synuclein in blood is challenging because more than 95% of circulating alpha-synuclein originates from red blood cells, creating substantial background noise.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a blinded evaluation of 59 participants from the Oxford Discovery cohort, the platform achieved 90.9% accuracy in distinguishing disease-associated profiles from healthy controls. The cohort included people with Parkinson\u2019s disease, healthy controls and individuals with isolated REM sleep behaviour disorder (iRBD), which is associated with an increased risk of developing Parkinson\u2019s and related neurological disorders.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The researchers found distinct patterns among the three forms of alpha-synuclein across the groups, suggesting that measuring them together could provide more diagnostic information than relying on a single marker.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sahika Inal, Associate Professor of Bioengineering at KAUST, said detecting changes associated with Parkinson\u2019s through a blood test remained challenging because they can occur before clinical diagnosis.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThese early results are encouraging, and the next step is to validate the technology in much larger groups of patients,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The researchers stressed that the platform is not yet a standalone clinical blood test. The study was a retrospective evaluation in an initial cohort, and larger prospective, multicentre studies will be needed to establish its predictive value before the technology could be used routinely.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Pic: Pavel Danilyuk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"pharmafile | October 15, 2026 | News story | |\u00a0\u00a0Diagnostics, Haematology, Neurological Diseases, Neurology, Parkinson\u2019s disease, blood testing,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":631310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[134,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-631309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=631309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}