Dr. Michael Sandberg’s mother loved bridge. She loved driving. And she loved the independence both gave her. When Alzheimer’s took those things away, she told her son, life wasn’t worth living without them.
Sandberg found her a trial. It gave his mother, as he puts it, more time as herself.
Now he’s had his own test. A finger prick. A plasma separation card. Results sent to a lab at room temperature, No refrigeration, no expensive brain scan. His result came back negative. The relief was immense.
What Sandberg Experienced
He’s part of Bio-Hermes-002, an international study testing whether a simple blood test can diagnose Alzheimer’s before symptoms begin. So far, 883 of the planned 1,000 participants have enrolled across 25 sites in the UK, USA, and Canada. Over 360 have already completed the test.
It’s an unusually diverse group, too. At least 30 percent come from underrepresented ethnic groups. That matters more than you might think.
Here’s why: Black Americans are twice as likely to have Alzheimer’s as white Americans. Hispanic and Latino Americans are 1.5 times more likely. But in clinical trials? Black and Hispanic participation rarely tops 20 percent. Often it’s as low as 2 percent. White Americans make up over 80 percent of trial participants.
Bio-Hermes-002 aims to close that gap. The test needs to work for everyone.
How the Test Works
It hunts for three proteins in your blood: p-tau217, GFAP, and NfL. All three are biomarkers of Alzheimer’s. They show up long before cognitive decline becomes obvious.
Researchers at the UK Dementia Research Institute’s Biomarker Factory will analyze each sample. They’ll compare results against the current gold standard—PET scans, MRI scans, and lumbar punctures. They’ll also test against other emerging tools: speech tests, retinal scans, and cognitive assessments.
The comparison matters because the gold standard isn’t accessible to everyone. Brain scans cost thousands of dollars. Spinal taps are invasive and slow. Both require infrastructure that doesn’t exist in many communities.
A dried blood spot card that ships at room temperature? That’s scalable. That’s affordable.
Why This Could Change Everything
Giovanna Lalli directs strategy and operations at LifeArc, which funds the trial. She notes that blood-based biomarkers have made real progress in the last five years. Early detection lets people access new drugs being developed to slow the disease. But only if diagnosis is cheap and available.
John Dwyer, president of the Global Alzheimer’s Platform Foundation running the study, calls the finger-prick approach revolutionary. Especially for people with limited access to specialized healthcare.
The trial isn’t just about validation, though that’s crucial. It’s about equity. Personalized medicine only works if it’s based on data from diverse populations. If trials keep underrepresenting certain groups, treatments will be optimized for those who were studied, not everyone who needs them.
More evidence is needed before the NHS or other health systems introduce a blood test for Alzheimer’s. But if successful, this approach could transform how we think about neurodegenerative diseases generally. Not just Alzheimer’s. All conditions where early intervention might preserve what matters most.
The Personal Stakes
For Sandberg, those stakes are obvious. He watched his mother’s decline. He saw what the disease took from her. The finger-prick test he took wasn’t just a medical procedure.
It was knowledge. It was relief. It was a different future than the one he’d feared.
The trial is expected to complete in 2028.
ScienceBlog.com has no paywalls, no sponsored content, and no agenda beyond getting the science right. Every story here is written to inform, not to impress an advertiser or push a point of view.
Good science journalism takes time — reading the papers, checking the claims, finding researchers who can put findings in context. We do that work because we think it matters.
If you find this site useful, consider supporting it with a donation. Even a few dollars a month helps keep the coverage independent and free for everyone.