Luis Concha, PhD

Dr. Concha is a biotechnology engineer with a PhD in biomedicine that has worked in protein misfolding associated with neurodegenerative diseases for approximately 15 years. Most of his efforts have been devoted to the development of biomarker tests to provide unbiased diagnostic solutions anchored in biological processes. Dr. Concha first developed a blood test for variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease that identified the prion biomarker with 100% sensitivity and specificity. Using the same principle, Dr. Concha and worked on developing a cerebrospinal fluid biomarker test for synucleinopathies, including Parkinson’s disease, dementia with Lewy bodies, and multiple system atrophy. His findings using alpha-synuclein seed amplification assays have been reported in over 30 publications, which have been cited over 3,000 times by peers and colleagues. This test is now commercially available in the clinic, and his goal is to further develop this technique to develop a non-invasive biomarker test for synucleinopathies and other proteinopathies.