A physical approach to AD pathogenesis and treatment

Caterina Guiot

Abstract

The biological mechanisms responsible for clinical conclamated Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) are very elusive and many hypotheses so far proposed (tau, amyloid) are not conclusive or at least are not able to early predict the disease progression. Among them, the role played by possible alterations in brain iron metabolism is very attractive. Our group is actively working in this field performing accurate measurements of the total iron content and speciation in serum and Cerebro-Spinal Fluid (CSF) as well as investigating iron transport across the Blood Brain Barrier (BBB) in physiological and pre-clinical AD. Data are correlated with other consolidated biomarkers using modern mathematical techniques based on machine learning algorithms. The goal isthat of producing a personalized profile of iron metabolism as preliminary diagnostic item for therapies based on iron chelation and magnetic driving.