Drs. Robert Bartha and Stephen Pasternak
Robarts Research Institute — where research brings discoveries and new technologies to clinical trial, to market, and ultimately, to you — faster.
Drs. Robert Bartha and Stephen Pasternak, and their teams, are developing new imaging contrast agents that target specific proteins associated with Alzheimer's disease. Their focus is to detect the earliest changes in cells in the disease.
The goal in using these new contrast agents is to develop MRI screening procedures that capture cell changes, which are visible in an MRI or PET image scanner, and identify patients who are on the road toward the disease but who aren't yet showing symptoms.
Currently, when a person begins to show even the earliest symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, some nerve cells in the brain have already started to die, causing damage that can't be reversed. By detecting the earliest biochemical changes, Drs. Bartha and Pasternak believe they can help to develop an effective treatment for Alzheimer's disease.
