Sanela Martic publishes about a new technique to detect Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer’s disease is one of the most dreaded illnesses of the elderly. This form of dementia is associated with tangles and plaques in the brain. These tangles are created by tau proteins, which are commonly found in nerve cells, and play an important role in stabilizing microtubules. The disease occurs when these tau proteins aggregate into clumps.

Assistant Professor Sanela Martic, of the Department of Chemistry, has recently published a report in ACS Chemical Neuroscience about a new technique to detect and study tau proteins. With colleagues from the University of Toronto, Martic describes her Electrochemical Investigations into Kinase-Catalyzed Transformations of Tau Protein (Volume 4, Pages 1194-1203). Their technique uses a method that detects tau on a surface, rather than in a volume of tissue. The goal is to develop a sensor that can detect tangles early, well before symptoms become obvious, thereby allowing treatment before the damage becomes irreversible.