Alzheimer's: Future Diagnoses May Come Via 'Simple' Skin Biopsy

Alzheimer's disease could one day be diagnosed with a simple skin biopsy instead of invasive spinal taps or expensive brain scans.

This is the promise of scientists from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, who have discovered stress-sensitive proteins that could act as biomarkers for the disease.

The team found a set of proteins called glycolytic enzymes that actually relocate nearby and inside mitochondria—compartments in cells where critical metabolic processes occur—when cells experience stress.

This reveals a previously unrecognized way cells adapt to damage.

This surprising "protein move-in" was seen not only in human kidney and cancer cells but also in skin biopsy-derived cells from patients with Alzheimer's , a disease more than seven million Americans are living with.