Rafii, Michael S MD

AD remains one of our greatest unmet medical needs, without any approved disease-modifying therapies. Individuals with DS comprise the largest group with genetically determined AD. We propose to assess the utility of Tau PET imaging as well as CSF and blood levels of Ptau217 as outcome measures for clinical trials of AD in adults with DS.

Down Syndrome (DS) is an Alzheimer’s disease related disorder (ADRD) that involves traditional AD neuropathology and cognitive impairment at an accelerated rate. We propose to use well- characterized, biobanked plasma samples from the Vitamin E in DS trial to characterize AD biomarkers and develop a precision medicine approach for use of anti-inflammatories in DS trials. In this proposal we will utilize our expertise in high throughput proteomics and analytics to better characterize our sample set and expand the database for this trial.