There is currently no early detection system for neurological protein misfolding disorders (such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases) that would satisfy the demands for rapid, quantitative, flexible, and reproducible assays to study the aggregation of these disease-inducing proteins in biological samples. The project has established the feasibility of such a system, where emerging protein aggregates are confined in microdroplets that are formed in microfluidic devices and can be analysed by a variety of fluorescence-based methods (e.g. FACS, fluorescence lifetime analysis or in chip devices).
