NIH Awards Grant to Develop Blood Test for Alzheimer’s Disease

The National Institutes of Health has awarded $19.4 million for a five-year international research project aimed at developing a blood test that could determine whether Alzheimer’s disease has progressed far along to explain a patient’s cognitive symptoms and help predict future disease progression.

The project, led by Lund University researcher Sebastian Palmqvist, will evaluate the biomarker MTBR-tau243 in patient cohorts in Sweden and the U.S. The collaborative research, which runs from 2026 through 2031, will also include teams from Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Alabama.

Current blood-based Alzheimer’s testing largely relies on biomarkers such as p-tau217, which can detect disease-related brain changes years before symptoms emerge. That sensitivity can create uncertainty, however, because a positive result does not necessarily establish that Alzheimer’s is responsible for a patient's current symptoms, according to Palmqvist.

MTBR-tau243 is intended to address that limitation by measuring changes associated with the accumulation of tau tangles as symptoms develop. “If the test is positive, we know that the disease has progressed to the point where it can explain the symptoms,” Palmqvist said.

Researchers will also study whether combining MTBR-tau243 with p-tau217 and conducting repeated blood tests can predict how rapidly an individual’s disease will progress. Ideally, the goal is to develop a staging approach for Alzheimer’s similar to cancer staging, allowing clinicians not only to identify the disease but also to assess its progression. Researchers said such information could eventually help provide patients with a prognosis and inform treatment options.