Biotech firm Sunbird Bio announced new data from a study demonstrating that Sunbird's technology could provide blood-based diagnosis of Parkinson's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases with a high level of accuracy.
The results were shared on October 31 in a poster presentation at the Clinical Trials on Alzheimer's Disease 2024 international conference in Madrid, the company said in a statement.
There are no specific blood-based diagnostic tests currently available for Parkinson's disease; diagnosis is typically made based on symptoms, medical history, and a detailed physical examination. Sunbird Bio's diagnostic technology detects and measures very low concentrations of extracellular vesicle (EV)-bound aggregated proteins in blood, according to the company.
The study aimed to determine if EV-bound α-synuclein proteins in the blood could be an effective method of reliably detecting α-synuclein aggregation in the brain. Aggregation of α-synuclein is a hallmark sign of Parkinson's and other neurodegenerative diseases, including dementia with Lewy bodies and multiple system atrophy.
The study evaluated the ability of Sunbird Bio's proprietary assays to accurately distinguish between EV-bound and unbound soluble forms of α-synuclein in plasma from blood samples collected from 16 individuals with Parkinson's disease and 24 age-matched healthy individuals.
The signature composed of brain-derived EV-bound α-synuclein classified Parkinson's disease-positive samples with an accuracy of 86%, while the unbound soluble α-synuclein blood biomarker "control" signature was unable to classify the disease-positive samples.
Not only are the findings potentially applicable for detecting Parkinson's disease, but they might also be used to detect other neurological disorders that have common co-pathologies associated with α-synuclein aggregation, including Alzheimer's disease, Sunbird added.
"Research has only recently uncovered the pivotal role that α-synuclein proteins play in the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease, and the ability to accurately detect the aggregation of these proteins from a blood test could transform how these diseases are diagnosed," Huilin Shao, PhD, founder of Sunbird Bio, said.
The company's diagnostic technology has potential not only as an accurate and accessible diagnostic for disease detection but also for drug development, disease monitoring, and personalized treatment selection for neurological disorders, it said.
Sunbird Bio's active pipeline currently includes blood-based tests for amyloid beta, tau, α-synuclein, TDP-43, and other neurological disease biomarkers.
