UCF researchers are teaming up with Boston University to develop a miniature diagnostic tool kit that will detect the early onset of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. The device is being built at UCF while research is also being conducted at Boston University. The project will use nanoparticles on a chip about the size of a credit card to detect damaging levels of oxygen byproducts in the central nervous system.

According to a research presented at the 28th Annual Conference of the American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery, a non-invasive laser procedure that uses laser-induced scatter and fluorescence measurements to detect a specific protein that accumulates in the brain and eyes of Alzheimer’s patients has shown favourable results in laboratory work. Alzheimer’s disease, which is the most common cause of dementia and the 12th leading cause of death in the U.S., is characterized by the accumulation of toxic deposits of the Beta-amyloid (BA) protein in the brain and in the eye lens.