With the risk of developing dementia growing at an alarming pace, a UCF research team is working with the Boston University School of Medicine to develop a miniature diagnostic toolkit in the hopes of stimulating earlier detection and treatment.
The collaborative research project, funded by the National Science Foundation for up to $600, 000 over three years, will use nanoparticles on a chip about the size of a credit card to detect damaging levels of oxygen byproducts in the central nervous system.
The byproducts, known as reactive oxygen species (ROS), are major contributors to serious neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.