Simple blood test could enable detection of Parkinson’s disease before symptoms emerge

A non-invasive PCR test that measures the ratio between two biomarkers could help detect Parkinson’s disease long before symptoms appear.

‘In many respects, neurodegenerative diseases today are where cancer was 50 years ago, namely when you are able to diagnose it, it’s too late to treat – so that’s why we need early diagnosis,’ says Hermona Soreq, a molecular neuroscientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel and one of the test’s developers.