MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Mr. Jim Joyce Chairman and CEO of Aethlon MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Mr. Joyce: Our research into the neurodegenerative disease Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), was inspired by the death of Tom McHale, who was a former teammate and the second person diagnosed with CTE by our colleagues at the Boston University CTE Center. CTE is characterized by exposure to repetitive head trauma and at present, can only be diagnosed post-mortem, thus creating a significant need for a non-invasive method to diagnose and monitor CTE in living individuals. The aim of our study was to examine exosomal tau levels in plasma as a potential CTE biomarker. Our research team originally discovered the presence of exosomal tau in circulation and then established methods to quantify exosomal tau, which we refer to as a TauSome™, which we believe to be the first potential blood test to detect CTE living individuals. For this study, researchers examined 78 former National Football League players and 17 former athletes of non-contact sports, with preliminary findings suggesting that exosomal tau in plasma may be a noninvasive, accurate biomarker for CTE. The study results, published in the journal of Alzheimer’s disease, can be accessed here: http://content.iospress.com/articles/journal-of-alzheimers-disease/jad151028?resultNumber=7&totalResults=48&start=0&q=exosome&resultsPageSize=10&rows=10. (more…)