Blanca Acha Santamaría, a predoctoral researcher from the NeuroEpigenetics Unit at Navarrabiomed-IdiSNA, will defend her thesis from the Universidad Pública de Navarra on Friday, 22nd March, at 11:30 h, in the conference room at Navarrabiomed. Her research, which is entitled “Identification epigenetic biomarkers for DNA methylation in peripheral blood from Alzheimer's disease patients” has been undertaken at Navarrabiomed under the supervision of Dr. Maite Mendioroz Iriarte, Principal Investigator, and Dr. Idoia Blanco Luquin, a postdoctoral researcher at the NeuroEpigenetics Unit at Navarrabiomed, as co-supervisor.

Research and results

The diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is one of the main challenges faced by the scientific community. As such, epigenetics may be a novel source of of potential diagnostic biomarkers for this disease. This thesis is based on the findings of a previous study by the group, performed using samples from the hippocampus of AD patients, which found abnormalities in the DNA methylation pattern in regulatory regions related to neurogenesis. See the paper published in Clinical Epigenetics.

The main aim of the thesis was to find epigenetic biomarkers based on DNA methylation in peripheral blood from AD patients that may help the diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of this disease. The results highlight a potential role for DNA methylation as part of a panel of biomarkers to improve the diagnosis of AD and which is easy to apply and accessible to all patients.

Funding and publication of the research 

This project has been possible thanks to a grant from the Strategic Health Action, in the framework of the National Scientific Research, Development and Technological Innovation Plan, financed by the Instituto de Investigación Carlos III (ISCIII) as part of the Healthcare Research Fund (FIS) call for proposals 2018–2021 (FIS PI17/02218). A grant for hiring predoctoral researchers has also been provided by PFIS: contract for predoctoral training in healthcare-related research, funded by the Instituto de Investigación Carlos III (ISCIII) 2019–2022 (FI18/00150).

The results of the research in this doctoral thesis have been published in the journal Neurology, “Association of Blood-based DNA Methylation Markers With Late-Onset Alzheimer Disease”. Moreover, Blanca Acha has presented scientific communications at several national and international conferences.