AD/PD 2026: Blood-based biomarkers at the core of neurodegeneration research
If there was one clear takeaway from AD/PD 2026, it is that blood-based biomarkers (BBMs) are no longer a future promise—they are becoming central to how we diagnose, stratify, and manage neurodegenerative disease.
Takeaways from AD/PD 2026
The field is moving beyond a single-marker mindset. Plasma p-tau217 is emerging as a backbone for Alzheimer’s diagnostics, but the real shift is toward multimodal, stage-aware biomarker strategies—combining blood, CSF, imaging, and longitudinal clinical data to capture disease biology at a higher resolution. Biomarkers are no longer just about detection; they’re increasingly expected to predict progression, inform treatment decisions, and even flag risks such as ARIA.
At the same time, the complexity of co-pathologies such as alpha-synuclein and vascular disease are coming into sharper focus, while neuroinflammation and microglial biology are proving highly context-dependent. Moreover, differences across populations, disease subtypes, and stages are forcing the field to move beyond “one-size-fits-all” thresholds or models. Precision medicine in neurodegenerative diseases is becoming more realistic, but also more demanding.
This is where broader, scalable, discovery-driven approaches are gaining traction. Moving beyond established markers such as amyloid and tau, large-scale proteomic platforms such as Olink are enabling a systems biology view of disease, thereby supporting the identification of novel pathways, patient subgroups, and clinically translational signals, backed by robust assay performance and reproducible data. The ability to scale these insights and translate them into robust biomarker signatures will be key to bridging discovery and clinical translation.
Below are several presentations from AD/PD 2026 leveraging large-scale proteomics approaches with Olink technology.
Selected presentations from AD/PD
Plasma proteomics sheds light on novel biomarkers of Lewy pathology
Minerva Martinez-Castillo, PhD student at Reina Sofia Foundation Alzheimer Center, presents research exploring how large-scale plasma proteomics with Olink technology can help identify biomarkers associated with Lewy pathology and neurodegeneration. The study identifies ITGAM and ITGAV as proteins associated with Lewy pathology severity and substantia nigra degeneration, highlighting their potential as blood-based biomarkers.
Multimodal biomarkers deepen our understanding of the biology of aging
Ossian Rabow, PhD student at Lund University, presents new data showing how CSF proteomics (generated on the Olink Explore platform) combined with MRI can predict biological age with high accuracy—and link “brain-age gap” to tau pathology.
Multi-omics approaches generate novel insights into Parkinson’s disease progression, beyond established markers
Maria Otero Jimenez, PhD, research associate at Imperial College London, discusses the Imperial College Landmark Project, a large-scale effort combining proteomics platforms such as Olink Explore HT, multi-omics, and neuropathology to better understand disease mechanisms and progression.
Proteomics supports identifying biomarkers for Parkinson’s disease before motor symptoms appear
David Brazel, Head of Data Science at Octave, shares how utilizing large-scale plasma proteomics with Olink Explore on the Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI) cohort is helping uncover early molecular signals, as well as the data science considerations behind analyzing datasets at this scale.