Detecting Parkinson’s disease at an early stage with the alpha-synuclein amplification test: Russell Lebovitz, MD, PhD

WATCHING TIME: 6 minutes

“The idea that we can suddenly detect what is causing these diseases, and do so years before we have symptoms, is the hope for patients. We can develop drugs and treat people at a very early stage. early, because unfortunately most brain damage is irreversible, so to manage these diseases we need to detect early, treat early, and that almost equates to prevention, even though we are already on the right track.

In 2019, the FDA granted Amprion Breakthrough Device Designation for the use of its SYNTap biomarker test to aid in the diagnosis of Parkinson disease (PD), becoming commercially available years later in 2021. The test is a first laboratory-developed qualitative test (LDT) and the only seed amplification test available to aid in the diagnosis of synucleinopathies such as in PD , Lewy Body Dementia (LBD), and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) with the Lewy Body variant.¹

Recently, Andrew Siderowf, MD, director of the Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Center at the University of Pennsylvania and co-principal investigator of the Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI), gave an oral presentation at American Academy of Neurology (AAN) 2023 Annual Meeting, April 22-27, in Boston, Massachusetts. In his presentation, Siderowf explained how Amprion’s α-synuclein seed amplification assay was used in the benchmark recently published PPMI article.

During the meeting, Russell Lebovitz, MD, PhD, CEO and co-founder of Amprion, sat down with NeurologyLive® in an interview to provide background on how the SYNTap test was developed and the importance of the technology in diagnosing neurodegenerative diseases such as PD by detecting misfolded α-synuclein aggregates in cerebrospinal fluid – spinal. Lebovitz also discussed how early detection of neurodegenerative diseases using Amprion’s technology can aid drug development and clinical trials.

Click here for more coverage on AAN 2023.

THE REFERENCES
1. Amprion announces the presentation of results related to the use of the αSynuclein seed amplification test in a recent study in Parkinson’s disease at the 2023 AAN Annual Meeting. Press release. Published April 21, 2023. Accessed May 10, 2023. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/amprion-announces-presentation-of-findings-related-to-usage-of-the-synuclein-seed- amplification-assay-in-recent-parkinsons-study-at-2023-aan-annual-meeting-301804312.html?tc=eml_cleartime