TDP-43
A key blood biomarker for ALS and frontotemporal dementia, with more than 100 ALS trials under way. Assay qualification complete at below 20% variability; deployed with more than seven pharmaceutical partners.
The ExoSort platform
Neuron-derived vesicles, isolated from a tube of plasma.
ExoSort is Neurodex's proprietary immunoaffinity method for capturing neuron-derived extracellular vesicles (NDEs) from blood. It is the reason proteins that are disease-specific but not brain-specific — α-synuclein, TDP-43, tau — become readable without a lumbar puncture.
The specificity problem
The brain expresses almost everything. Almost nothing is only the brain's.
A protein measured in whole plasma is a sum over every tissue that makes it. For the small set of truly brain-specific markers that is fine. For the pathology that actually defines Parkinson's, ALS or Alzheimer's, it is noise. Isolating the neuron's own vesicles first restores the signal.
80%
of all human genes are expressed in the brain.
0.6%
are highly specific to the brain; a further 9% are brain-enriched. The remaining 90% cannot serve as biomarkers in whole blood.
>91%
of brain RNA and protein require neuron-derived vesicles to be detected in blood at all.
Two proteins, two very different problems.
Brain-specific
NF-L
Neurofilament light is made almost exclusively by neurons, so a plasma measurement already reflects the brain. ExoSort adds little here — and we say so. It remains a strong marker of neuronal damage and sits on the panel as a plasma assay.
Disease-specific, not brain-specific
α-Synuclein
Expressed throughout the body, α-synuclein in whole plasma says nothing about Lewy pathology. Inside neuron-derived vesicles it does: Neurodex's NDE α-synuclein assay predicts CSF seed-amplification positivity with more than 80% sensitivity and specificity.
Workflow
From draw to data in five steps.
Standard EDTA plasma. No special collection kit, no CSF, no imaging visit.
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01
Plasma draw
Frozen plasma from any site; retrospective biobank samples qualify.
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02
Immunoaffinity capture
ExoSort binds neuron-surface markers and pulls NDEs from the vesicle pool.
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03
Cargo release
Vesicles are quantified, characterised and lysed to free protein, RNA and lipid.
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04
Measurement
Immunoassay, RNA sequencing, PCR or mass spectrometry — chosen for the question.
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05
Qualified report
Data with documented CV, QC and traceability, formatted for your statisticians.
Three assays, qualified in the open.
NDE α-Synuclein
Qualified at CV below 15%. In 150 clinically diagnosed PD and LBD patients, blood NDE α-synuclein predicted CSF seeding positivity with over 80% sensitivity and specificity. An 1,100-sample PPMI study is ongoing, supported by MJFF.
PPMI transcriptome
RNA-seq of 1,100 samples — 250 Parkinson's and 150 healthy participants at three time points — completed with TGen under NIH funding. Over 90% QC pass rate and batch-to-batch reproducibility of R = 0.93.
In two minutes
Watch how ExoSort isolates the neuron's message from the noise of the body.
Bring us a hypothesis. We'll tell you if the blood can answer it.
Feasibility conversations are free and led by the scientists who run the assays.