Work Package 3: Biomarkers

Novel Biomarkers: Serum, Plasma, Imaging & Signal Analysis

The objective of Work Package 3 is to identify biomarkers that could provide insight into ALS. Biomarkers could work as quantitative markers of clinical presentation for earlier diagnosis, predictors of disease progression, or discriminants to stratify ALS patients into more specific subgroups. 

Biomarkers may be found by analysing individual differences in blood constituents, imaging, neuroelectric signals, and RNA. Biomarkers could eventually be used to design more effective clinical trials by stratifying patients into more specific and precise trials and providing data-driven and objective measures of trial outcomes. 

TRICALS partners in Utrecht and Dublin have generated a large imaging dataset of MRI scans that is suitable for analysis to determine optimal imaging requirements to develop novel biomarkers. Both sites have extensive expertise in neuroelectric signal analysis using spectral electroencephalography (EEG) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and are developing novel analytic protocols to categorise patients into subgroups based on specific patterns of network disruption. FutureNeuro researchers, in collaboration with TRICALS partners, have developed novel approaches to assess RNA as biomarkers in ALS.

Leader: Prof. Peter Bede, Dr Bahman Nasseroleslami