Early Detection of Parkinson's Disease using Noninvasive Retinal Imaging Biomarkers

Principal Investigator: 

Ching-Hwa Sung, Professor of Cell Biology in Ophthalmology

Background & Unmet Need

  • Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease, affecting 10 million people worldwide
  • The presence of Lewy bodies, which are made up by aggregated a-synuclein protein deposits, are a hallmark of PD
  • Emerging diagnostics for PD measure levels of a-synuclein in spinal fluid, which is collected from invasive lumbar punctures
  • Lumbar punctures can be painful and put patients at risk for spinal fluid leakage, prolonged headaches, back pain, and bleeding
  • It is currently difficult to accurately measure pathological a-synuclein aggregates in living patients using non-invasive methods
  • Unmet Need: Noninvasive biomarkers for early assessment of Parkinson's disease

Technology Overview

  • The Technology: A method for early detection of Parkinson’s Disease using fundus imaging to measure autofluorescent microglia in the retina
  • The Discovery: In a mouse model of PD, retinal microglia engulf lipofuscins from rod cells and express phospho-a-synuclein-positive inclusions and bright autofluorescence
  • These microglia can be seen via fundus autofluorescence imaging or confocal laser scanning ophthalmoscopy as bright foci
  • The emergence of autofluorescent foci temporally coincides with onset and progression of disease as well as Lewy body deposition
  • PoC Data: In a mouse model of PD, diseased mice had significantly more autofluorescent foci in the eye (p<0.001) than control mice at 2 months old
  • The number of autofluorescent foci increases over time in diseased mice, matching retinal degeneration, a measure of PD disease progression

Technology Applications

  • Early, noninvasive detection of Parkinson’s Disease
  • Method of monitoring PD progression over time
  • Method of assessing treatment efficacy during treatment and clinical trials
  • Diagnosis of other neurodegenerative diseases with aggregated a-synuclein deposition in the eye, such as Lewy body dementia

Technology Advantages

  • Noninvasive, unlike current diagnostics that utilize spinal taps or biopsies
  • Measures actual levels of pathological a-synuclein inclusions, rather than amplifying the quantity, enabling more accurate assessment of the disease
  • Increased autofluorescence correlates to disease progression, allowing for better assessment of the state of the disease or treatment efficacy
  • More cost effective than methods requiring sampling and assays for protein or nucleic acid levels
Expression of biomarker increases over time, matching disease progression.

Figure 1: Expression of biomarker increases over time, matching disease progression.

Intellectual Property

Patents

  • Provisional Filed

Cornell Reference

  • 10740

Contact Information

Dr. Jeff James

For additional information please contact

Jeffrey James
Associate Director, Business Development and Licensing
Phone: (646) 962-4194
Email: jaj268@cornell.edu