Nucleic acid-based risk factors and biomarkers: a future perspective on their use and development in Alzheimer's disease.

As our population lives longer the impact of Alzheimer's disease threatens to exert socioeconomic influences across generations. We now know that by the manifestation of memory problems, the neuropathological processes associated with Alzheimer's disease have progressed in the brain for over a decade. This represents an opportunity for medicine - a window to detect, diagnose and treat to prevent the onset of these cognitive symptoms. To achieve these goals we need the confluence of safe effective treatments and an improved ability to identify individuals at highest risk for the disease as early as possible. We will touch on current work in that arena and discuss the future of diagnostic and risk assessment capabilities through the use of nucleic acid-based measurements.