A combination of blood tests and ultrathin materials derived from graphite could significantly advance efforts to detect Alzheimer’s disease before symptoms appear.
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia. For millions of Europeans and the health services that care for them, this is a ticking time bomb for which there is still no cure. But EU-funded researchers are developing a simple tool that could enable much earlier detection, decades before symptoms appear.
Early detection is important because treatment is most effective when started as soon as possible. This gives people a good chance to slow the progression of the disease and plan for the future. Currently, around 7 million people in Europe have Alzheimer’s disease, and according to the European Brain Council, that number is expected to double by 2030.
For Dr. Aristeidis Bakandrissos, the challenge is clear. To detect Alzheimer’s disease early enough to make a real difference, tests need to become easier, cheaper, and far less invasive.
“Early detection is only practical for people when it is cheap for medical services and painless and easy for patients, but that is not the case today,” says Bakandritsos, a senior researcher at the Czech Institute for Advanced Technology Research (CATRIN), part of Palacký University Olomouc in the Czech Republic.
For regular checkups
Bakandrissos is coordinating a four-year EU-funded research initiative launched in October 2023 to transform the detection of Alzheimer’s disease. The project, called 2D-BioPAD, is developing an affordable device that can identify up to five Alzheimer’s disease-related proteins, known as biomarkers, from a simple blood sample.
The aim is not to replace existing diagnostic methods such as brain scans or spinal taps, but to enable earlier screening in everyday medical practice. By alerting people at risk before symptoms appear, doctors can intervene sooner when treatment is most effective.
Clinical trial studies are currently underway in Finland, Greece, and Germany to assess the performance, safety, ethical implications of this tool, and how it can be adapted into everyday medical care.
From invasive tests to simple blood samples
Diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease remains complex and often invasive. Currently, confirmation usually relies on brain imaging tests or spinal taps to analyze cerebrospinal fluid (the fluid that protects the brain and spinal cord). Although blood-based tests are emerging, they remain limited to memory clinics.
The 2D-BioPAD team aims to change this. Their vision is a faster, cheaper, and far less invasive blood test that could eventually be used in everyday medical practice.
If successful, GPs could alert people at risk long before memory loss or confusion becomes apparent.
Early treatment is key
Until recently, treatment options focused primarily on symptom management. Things changed in 2025 when the EU approved the first two disease-modifying Alzheimer’s disease treatments.
These drugs target amyloid beta plaques, which are protein fragments that build up between brain cells and prevent communication. More importantly, they work best in the early stages of the disease, making timely diagnosis more important than ever.
Vincent Bouchiat, CEO and co-founder of Grapheal SAS, a project partner specializing in graphene-based healthcare technologies, acknowledges the ethical complexities of early detection, but also points out the benefits.
“There’s good reason to know that you can develop dementia. New Alzheimer’s drugs have shown promise in slowing the progression of the disease, which is clearly a major advance.”
How graphene enables smarter testing
At the heart of the 2D-BioPAD device is graphene. Graphene is a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon that is stronger and a better conductor of electricity than the same sheet made of steel.
When Alzheimer’s disease-related proteins bind to the graphene surface, they subtly change the way electricity flows through the material. These changes can in principle be detected with exceptional sensitivity, motivating researchers to exploit this potential to identify biomarkers that are present at extremely low concentrations.
Compared to lab-based blood tests currently on the market, the concept’s device could offer several advantages, including results in approximately 30 minutes, testing in primary care settings, the ability to detect multiple biomarkers at once, and significantly lower cost.
The project brings together 11 partners from eight European countries, combining expertise in nanotechnology, clinical research and digital innovation.
By the end of 2026, researchers hope to know how the technology performs compared to existing laboratory equipment.
If the results are positive, the team hopes to secure further funding for commercialization through additional testing, validation and regulatory approval. Researchers hope the test could be in routine use as early as five years.
Incorporate testing into daily care
Long-Term Vision is a simple, portable screening that easily fits into daily medical care. A small blood sample, similar to a diabetes test, is inserted into a small device connected to a tablet or smartphone.
Rather than giving a yes or no answer, doctors receive the concentrations of relevant biomarkers, which helps them decide whether further testing is needed. When used in this way, the device acts as an early warning system rather than an independent diagnostic.
The test is a bit similar to the rapid lateral flow test that became popular during the COVID-19 pandemic, but with much greater analytical power. Measuring multiple biomarkers at once significantly increases reliability compared to single marker tests.
AI will also play an important role. AI and machine learning can help design small molecular “probes” that detect Alzheimer’s disease proteins, optimizing the probes through rapid simulations based on protein databases and molecular models.
Affordable solutions to global problems
Cost is a major barrier to widespread testing. Today’s laboratory-based tests can cost more than 40 euros per biomarker, and the cost of the required equipment can reach hundreds of thousands of euros.
The 2D-BioPAD system aims to significantly reduce that by combining a disposable cartridge and low-cost detection device that tests multiple biomarkers at once.
Jean-Georges, executive director of Alzheimer Europe, a pan-European network of national dementia associations, sees this as part of a broader shift away from focusing solely on treatment towards improving early detection and reducing risk.
“We hope that this change will ultimately benefit not only people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, but also people without cognitive problems,” he said.
At the same time, it also emphasizes the need for honesty and compassion. No test can accurately predict who will develop dementia or how it will progress.
“Predicting dementia risk has ethical, legal and social implications,” says Georges. “Disclosure should always be done in an open, honest, empathetic and sympathetic manner.”
The research for this article was funded by the EU’s Horizon program. The views of the interviewees do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Commission.
This article was originally published in Horizon, EU Research and Innovation Magazine.
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