New proteome-based studies predict ALS and PD

12. February 2026

Shifting the focus to the ultra-early detection of neurodegenerative diseases, the EPIC4ND collaboration, which is co-led by LIGA head Dr. Lars Bertram, has recently yielded two highly noteworthy manuscripts. Both originate from EPIC4ND PI and long-standing LIGA collaborator Prof. Christina M. Lill from University of Münster. The first paper describes a massive proteomic profiling effort that fundamentally redefines the timeline of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). By analyzing pre-diagnostic plasma samples up to two decades before clinical onset, the data revealed a prolonged pre-diagnostic phase characterized by significant immune, muscular, and metabolic involvement. The second paper applies a similar high-throughput plasma proteomics approach to uncover preclinical molecular signatures of Parkinson’s disease, crucially mapping out the molecular overlap with other neurodegenerative disorders to identify shared early pathological cascades. Both of these groundbreaking projects were spearheaded by Münster-based PhD student (and former LIGA member) Jan Homann and supervised Prof. Lill. From our end, LIGA’s current and former members Drs. Dobricic, Deecke and Bertram contributed heavily to the complex data processing. Both manuscripts are currently under-review and available as full-text preprints on the medRxiv server: Homann et al. 2025a and Homann et al. 2025b.