Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a debilitating neurodegenerative disorder that affects an estimated 1 million sufferers in the United States alone. The leading biomarkers for Parkinson’s are phosphorylation sites on neurological proteins that agglomerate into the hallmarks of Parkinson’s disease - Lewy Bodies. Fluorosequencing, a massively parallel, single-molecule peptide sequencing technology, offers the potential to quantify both the healthy and pathological versions of these proteins, which can lead to early detection of the disease.

To express a state of health, a cell presents antigens, short peptides at the surface of the cell , to the immune system. Neoantigens are signals a cancerous cell presents to the immune system to indicate that a mutation has taken place in the cell’s genome and the cell should be discarded. Targeting neoantigens is one of the most promising areas in the field of immuno-oncology. Existing proteomic techniques fall short because they lack the sensitivity and fidelity required for direct detection of neoantigens, hampering the effective application of these potential cures. Fluorosequencing overcomes these limitations and has the potential to unleash some of medicine's most promising solutions to stop cancer.

One way that a virus like SARS-CoV-2 evades the immune system is by decorating its envelope with sugars in a process known as glycosylation. These sugars act as a camouflage, hiding the virus from the body's defenses. Fluorosequencing can help with pandemic preparedness by identifying glycosylation patterns of zoonotic viruses before they move between species. These signatures can be compared to or assayed with human models to predict how infectious the virus may or may not be. If a virus is deemed to have a human vector, then tests, treatments, and vaccines can be developed well before an outbreak occurs.