Shih-Hsiu "Jerry" Wang, MD, PhD, gave two talks at the 17th International Conference on Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Diseases and Related Neurological Disorders (AD/PD Meeting) in Gothenburg, Sweden, Held March 28-April 1, 2023.
His on-site presentation focused on tau biomarkers, and was titled “Phosphor-tau396 is a Novel Potential Biomarker for Early Alzheimer’s Disease Diagnosis and Tauopathy Differential Diagnosis.” One of the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is neurofibrillary tangles, which are protein aggregates of tau that are driven by hyper-phosphorylation. Tau is a protein that helps stabilize the internal skeleton of nerve cells (neurons) in the brain. Recent advances in mass spectrometry have provided a detailed map of tau post-translational modifications (PTM), including phosphorylation sites frequently found in AD patients.
In his talk, Wang described his collaborative work with Dr. Bin Xu of NCCU that was based on using these detailed PTM map to develop site-specific phosphor-tau antibodies as diagnostic biomarkers to distinguish subjects with mild cognitive impairment from cognitively normal controls, which is a major challenge in early AD diagnosis.
Wang also presented an online talk about TDP43 pathology titled “Clinical and Neuropathological Features of LATE are affected by Co-Existing Lewy Body Pathology.” In it, he described how co-existing Lewy body pathology affects LATE (limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy) neuropathologic change, including younger age, milder cerebrovascular pathology, and milder LATE pathology.
The annual AD/PD meeting is one of the main international conferences on neurodegenerative diseases, with over 4000 participants from 62 countries in attendance this year. Read more about the conference and watch 2023 highlights here.
In April of 2022, Wang’s proposal titled “Novel pathogenic mechanisms linking age-related TDP-43 pathology, cerebrovascular pathology, and Alzheimer’s disease in the aging brain” was selected to receive $75,000 in funding per year for two years as a Duke/UNC Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC) Developmental Project. Read more about the developmental project program here.
Learn about Shih-Hsiu Wang Lab’s research here