OU-Beaumont Team Studies Alzheimer's Disease

Oakland University and Beaumont Hospitals have been collaborators in biomedical research for decades. Since the establishment of the Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine, these two institutions have been promoting collaborative interactions between their faculty. A recent publication in the Journal of Neuroscience Methods (Volume 195, Pages 249-253) illustrates one successful joint project. Assistant Professor and CBR member John Finke, of the Department of Chemistry, works with David Loeffler’s laboratory in the Department of Neurology Research at the William Beaumont Hospital Research Institute to measure proteins (called Abeta) that play a key role in the development of Alzheimer’s disease.

The focus of their article is to access the utility of a technique called enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for detecting Abeta. The method makes use of antibodies, which provide highly specific binding to an antigen (in this case, the Abeta). The antibody is linked to an enzyme, and then a substance is added to allow the enzyme to be detected. Finke and Loeffler compared ELISA to other methods for detecting Abeta, and discovered some significant limitations to the technique. They conclude that “it seems prudent to suggest that it should be used in combination with other methods, rather than as the sole technique, for measuring Abeta oligomers in biological specimens.”