? ARTFL LEFFTDS Longitudinal FTLD: BIOFLUID CORE Successful treatment of Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration (FTLD) will require early and accurate diagnosis, and the ability to monitor the effects of novel interventions in clinical trials. An overarching goal of ALLFTD is to generate a well-characterized population of potential clinical trial participants who have data relevant to clinical trial inclusion and stratification criteria, for which fluid biomarker data from blood or CSF are useful. Moreover, as increasing numbers of clinical trials for FTLD are imminent, there is an urgent need to refine current fluid biomarkers and develop new tools with improved sensitivity and specificity to elucidate downstream effects of interventions. In addition to generating fluid biomarker data, a major role of the Biofluid Core will be to manage biospecimen and biomarker data sharing as well as to help manage collaborative biomarker discovery efforts with academia and industry. The Biofluid Core will be led by experts in FTLD biomarkers, Drs. Leonard Petrucelli and Adam Boxer, and an expert in CSF neurodegenerative biomarker discovery and analysis, Dr. Anne Fagan, to achieve the following aims: (1) Oversee biofluid specimen collection, processing, storage and sharing in collaboration with the Clinical Core, Administrative Core and the National Centralized Repository for Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias (NCRAD) biobank. (2) Perform measurements of standard biomarkers of neurodegeneration in CSF and blood in all participants, and targeted measurements of genetically relevant proteins in specific f-FTLD populations. (3) Support external collaborations to identify new FTLD therapeutic targets and biomarkers.
