Israeli researchers say they have developed a blood test that can accurately tell whether someone might be developing Parkinson’s – even before they have symptoms.

“This discovery is a big step forward in how we understand and detect Parkinson’s,” said lead scientist Prof. Hermona Soreq of The Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences and The Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences at the Hebrew University.

The scientists took a novel approach by analyzing transfer RNA fragments (tRFs) – traditionally overlooked in Parkinson’s research – to detect the disease in its earliest stages.

The disease is often diagnosed only after significant brain damage has occurred, “when there’s no use in developing therapeutics,” Soreq told The Times of Israel by telephone. “We now have a simple, minimally invasive blood test, so if we catch the disease at a much earlier stage, then there is hope.”

PhD student Nimrod Madrer worked on the study under Soreq’s supervision with Dr. Iddo Paldor from the Shaare Zedek Medical Center and Dr. Eyal Soreq from the University of Surrey and the Imperial College London, who is also Soreq’s son.

The results were published in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal Nature Aging.

In a telephone interview, Madrer, 34, said that he had finished a research project with Soreq for the last part of his PhD and was wondering what to work on next. He considered looking at tRNA fragments in Parkinson’s Disease because the field hadn’t been studied in depth “and started from there.”

Then, on October 7, 2023, thousands of Hamas-led terrorists attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping 251, mostly civilians, into Gaza.

Madrer was drafted back into the........

© The Times of Israel