RedShiftBio’s AQS³pro Changes the Game in the Detection and Treatment of Alzheimer’s

RedShift Bioanalytics’ instrumentation was crucial in ground-breaking developments in the detection and treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD).

The AQS³®pro, based on the company’s proprietary Microfluidic Modulation Spectroscopy, provided scientists from the University of Washington insight into the formation of small amyloid beta aggregates, the elements now believed to cause cognitive impairment typical in AD. The findings, published April 19 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, indicate that amyloid beta oligomers — not plaques — are the toxic agents behind Alzheimer’s disease. The results also suggest that synthetic alpha sheets could form the basis of therapeutics to clear toxic oligomers in people.

Amyloid beta proteins are formed by neurons in the brain. Single instances of these proteins (monomers of amyloid beta) perform important tasks, however when amyloid beta monomers join together - aggregate- as in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease, they malfunction. Ultimately they form large deposits called plaques which were believed to trigger the cognitive impairments in Alzheimer’s disease. Recent research, however, implicates the smaller aggregates of amyloid beta as the toxic elements of this disease.

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