Dr. Jeff Ratliff of the Neurology^® Podcast recently interviewed Dr. Christopher Gibbons, Senior Scientific Advisor and Co-Founder of CND Life Sciences, about the results of the Synuclein-One Study, which were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in March 2024.

Until the publication of the paper, titled “Skin Biopsy Detection of Phosphorylated α-Synuclein in Patients With Synucleinopathies,” Dr. Gibbons notes that previous research on the utility of detecting phosphorylated alpha-synuclein in the skin was based on smaller, mostly single-center studies that focused on patients with Parkinson’s disease or multiple system atrophy. “This study was designed to evaluate how the Syn One Test® performed in clinical practice by including both academic centers and private practice groups encompassing the entire group of disorders known as synucleinopathies,” Dr. Gibbons explains.

Dr. Gibbons and Dr. Ratliff discuss the study methods and primary findings of the large, multi-center Synuclein-One Study, which demonstrated that the Syn-One Test detected phosphorylated alpha-synuclein in >95% (N= 223) of patients with a clinically-confirmed synucleinopathy and in about 3% of healthy controls.

When asked what advice he has for neurologists, Dr. Gibbons outlines two main use cases for clinical practice—confirming a synucleinopathy when a patient’s symptoms don’t clearly point to a particular neurological disorder, and distinguishing between disorders with overlapping symptoms, such as Parkinson’s disease, which is a synucleinopathy, and progressive supranuclear palsy, which is not. Another application may be identifying patients who are at risk of developing a synucleinopathy—those with a family history of Parkinson’s, for example—but more research is needed to determine how early phosphorylated alpha-synuclein can be detected before symptoms develop.

Drs. Gibbons and Ratliff discuss potential future implications of the study results, what Dr. Gibbons and his colleagues are working on now, and other topics including:

• Examples from Dr. Gibbons’ own practice where the Syn-One Test made a difference in his patients’ lives
• A discussion of “patterns of positivity” and what they mean for distinguishing between the synucleinopathies
• A surprising finding among the patients who were excluded from the healthy control group of the Synuclein-One Study

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