Dr. Concha has worked on neurodegeneration for more than 10 years. He initially studied infectious prion proteins using a technique pioneered by Dr. Claudio Soto called Protein Misfolding Cyclic Amplification (PMCA). Dr. Concha reported the first PMCA method for the detection of prion variants in the blood of individuals with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease with 100% sensitivity and specificity. Dr. Concha joined Amprion to apply his knowledge in protein misfolding to more widespread diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease (PD). At Amprion, Dr. Concha developed a high-throughput diagnostic assay based on the PMCA principle called alpha-Synuclein Seed Amplification Assay (αS-SAA), for detecting alpha-synuclein aggregates in CSF. These aggregates are now understood to be a biomarker for PD and other synucleinopathies. The αS-SAA developed by Dr. Concha is highly accurate, robust, and it has been approved to analyze patients’ samples and support PD clinical trials under CLIA registration.