The Koyal Group InfoMag NewBlood Test Has Potential to Predict Alzheimers

In March of this year, a team of Georgetown University scientists published research showing that, for
the first time ever, a blood test has the potential to predict Alzheimer's disease before patients start
showing symptoms. AACC is pleased to announce that a late-breaking session at the 2014 AACC Annual
Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo in Chicago will expand upon this groundbreaking research and discuss why it
could be the key to curing this devastating illness.

According to the World Health Organization, the number of Alzheimer's patients worldwide is expected
to skyrocket from the 35.6 million individuals who lived with it in 2010 to 115.4 million by 2050.
Currently, however, all efforts to cure or effectively treat the disease have failed. Experts believe one
explanation for this lack of success could be that the window of opportunity for treating Alzheimer's has
already closed by the time its symptoms manifest.

Enter the research team led by Howard Federoff, MD, PhD, executive dean at Georgetown University
School of Medicine in Washington, D.C. In cognitively healthy adults age 70 and older, Federoff's team
measured the levels of 10 lipids found in the blood to identify, with 90% accuracy, which study group
participants would develop cognitive impairment over a 2-3 year period. If this 10-lipid test is validated
in larger studies, it could help researchers to develop treatments for Alzheimer's that halt or slow the
disease before it even begins. A blood test would also be easier to perform than current Alzheimer's
tests that use brain imaging or hard-to-collect cerebrospinal fluid, meaning that the Federoff team's test
could be used for population-wide Alzheimer's screening.

Amrita Cheema, PhD, one of the main investigators on Federoff's team, will give an in-depth lecture on
the test's significance, the science behind it, and the research techniques used to develop it in the July
28 AACC session, "Lipidomics: A Powerful Approach to Identify Pre-clinical Memory Impairment in Older
Adults." Cheema is an associate professor and co-director of the Proteomics and Metabolomics Shared
Resource at Georgetown University.

"This discovery is a potentially enormous breakthrough in the fight against Alzheimer's," said AACC CEO
Janet B. Kreizman. "If research aimed at a cure for Alzheimer's is to move forward, it is crucial that
Alzheimer's clinical trials find a way to recruit patients who are still asymptomatic, since they are the
ones most likely to respond to treatment. The Federoff team's test could be the answer to this problem,
and it also demonstrates how laboratory medicine helps patients achieve better health -- by not only
ensuring that patients receive timely and appropriate treatment, but also by enabling researchers to
develop effective treatments in the first place."

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