30 years of research
Dr. Dayan Goodenowe is a biochemist and metabolomics researcher whose work spans neurodegeneration, cancer, rare childhood disease, and the biochemistry of human aging. This is the arc of that work: the problem he set out to solve, the technology he invented, the discovery it led to, and where the research went from there.
The problem to solve
Dr. Goodenowe's research began with a question that medicine in the 1990s had no good tools to answer: what goes wrong in blood and brain chemistry before symptoms of neurological disease appear?
Most diseases, including cancer and dementia, develop over years or decades of accumulating biochemical change. The body has no mechanism to signal that this transition is underway. By the time symptoms appear, the process has often been running for a long time.
The analytical tools available at the time made this problem worse. They required researchers to already know what they were looking for. You could measure a specific compound if you suspected it was relevant. What you could not do was scan the full biochemical landscape of a blood sample and ask, with no preconceptions, what is different here compared to a healthy person?
That limitation shaped the first major project of his career: building a platform that could.
The invention
In 1999, Dr. Goodenowe invented and patented an advanced mass spectrometry platform capable of measuring thousands of unknown biochemicals in a single blood sample simultaneously, without specifying in advance what to look for. Patent: WO 2007/030948 →
This approach, known as non-targeted metabolomics, was not yet a recognized field. The first peer-reviewed publication describing the platform appeared in 2002 in the OMICS Journal, co-authored with researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science. Aharoni, Goodenowe et al. (2002) →
To develop the platform at scale, Dr. Goodenowe co-founded Phenomenome Discoveries Inc. in Saskatoon in 2000. The company grew to approximately 50 employees and produced collaborative research with institutions including RIKEN in Japan, Case Western Reserve University, Osaka University, and the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency. Saskatchewan's Innovation Place provided the institutional home for that work, and over the following decade the operation became a fully certified analytical laboratory. Phenomenome Discoveries held ISO 13485 certification from the British Standards Institution, a Saskatchewan Medical Laboratory License from the Saskatchewan Ministry of Health, CLIA registration from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, College of American Pathologists accreditation, and a Medical Device License from Health Canada. Its analytical platform was processing over 1,000 samples per day. Receivership record →
Over the following decade, Dr. Goodenowe and collaborators used that platform to analyze blood from tens of thousands of individuals across multiple countries, comparing the biochemistry of healthy people with those living with disease. The scale of that data collection is what made the discovery possible.
The discovery
Across nearly every condition they studied, one pattern kept emerging: people with neurological disease, certain cancers, and accelerated aging consistently showed depleted levels of a specific class of molecules in their blood. Those molecules are called plasmalogens.
Plasmalogens are a class of phospholipids: structural molecules that make up approximately 18 to 20 percent of the phospholipids in human cell membranes. They are concentrated in the brain, heart, immune cells, and the myelin sheath that insulates nerve fibers, where they play essential roles in membrane integrity, cellular signaling, cholesterol transport, and antioxidant defense.
How essential they are is perhaps best illustrated by what happens when they are absent entirely. Rhizomelic Chondrodysplasia Punctata (RCDP) is a rare genetic disorder in which children are born unable to produce plasmalogens. Most do not survive past age 10.
Dr. Goodenowe's 2007 paper in the Journal of Lipid Research was among the first to establish that peripheral plasmalogen deficiency is a logical causative factor in Alzheimer's disease and dementia, with co-authors from Case Western Reserve University, the Sun Research Institute, and Osaka University. Goodenowe et al. (2007) →
Subsequent research documented the same pattern in Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, certain cancers, autism, bipolar disorder, and cardiovascular disease. By the time the largest study in this body of work was published in 2020, drawing on serum samples from 1,547 individuals through the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) consortium, the association between plasmalogen deficiency and neurodegeneration had been replicated independently by research groups around the world. Kling, Goodenowe et al. (2020) Alzheimer's and Dementia →
Where the research led
The plasmalogen finding opened two parallel lines of work that have continued for more than two decades.
The first was developing blood analysis platforms that could capture the biochemical picture the research was revealing: phospholipid membrane composition, fatty acid profiles, mitochondrial function markers, and oxidative stress biomarkers, all measured together from a single blood sample. Phenomenome built that platform into a commercially available service used by health professionals to assess biochemical profiles associated with aging and neurological decline. That work became the ProdromeScan platform, used by more than 3,000 health professionals worldwide.
The second direction was biochemical: designing compounds that could restore plasmalogen levels in people whose bodies were not producing enough. The rationale follows the logic of nutritional sufficiency. Scurvy results from extended vitamin C deficiency; restoring vitamin C addresses the underlying biochemistry. If plasmalogen deficiency is associated with neurological decline, restoring it during that window is the intervention worth investigating.
The core challenge is that plasmalogens cannot simply be consumed because they are destroyed in the gut. Dr. Goodenowe designed a class of alkyl-diacylglycerol (AAG) plasmalogen precursors: molecules that survive digestion, enter the bloodstream, and are converted into target plasmalogens by the body's own biochemistry, independent of peroxisomal function. Wood, Goodenowe et al. (2011) Lipids in Health and Disease →
One of those compounds, PPI-1011, which Dr. Goodenowe co-invented at Phenomenome Discoveries [Patent: US 9,334,235B2], is now the subject of the only Health Canada-approved human trial for RCDP. Phase 1 safety data published in 2025 showed the compound was well tolerated with no serious adverse events and produced dose-dependent increases in target plasmalogens. Dr. Goodenowe is co-inventor on the patent but is not a listed author on the Phase 1 paper; the trial was conducted by Med-Life Discoveries LP, which acquired the compound through the Phenomenome receivership. Med-Life is currently preparing a Phase 2 efficacy trial in RCDP patients with an FDA application described as forthcoming. Smith et al. (2025) Clinical and Translational Science →
Phenomenome Discoveries entered court-ordered receivership on February 26, 2016. All assets, including patents, compounds, and the research infrastructure built over fifteen years, were acquired by Med-Life Discoveries LP through the receivership in September 2016. Dr. Goodenowe started over. By 2024, he had returned to Saskatchewan and begun building the Moose Jaw Vitality Project, a community health model grounded in the same biochemical science. More on what is being built →
What we know and what we are still learning
Science is a process. Some of the findings in this body of work are well established across multiple independent studies. Others are promising but require the kind of large-scale controlled trials that take years and significant funding to complete. Both categories are represented here because transparency about what remains uncertain is as important as confidence in what is known.
Well established
- Plasmalogens are essential structural phospholipids concentrated in the brain, heart, immune cells, and myelin, and their deficiency is documented across Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, certain cancers, and normal aging by independent research groups worldwide
- Complete plasmalogen deficiency (RCDP) is fatal in childhood, establishing the biological necessity of these molecules beyond dispute
- Synthetic plasmalogen precursors designed by Dr. Goodenowe raise circulating plasmalogen levels in both animals and humans
- PPI-1011 completed Phase 1 human safety trials with no serious adverse events and dose-dependent increases in target plasmalogens
- More than 90 published research papers and more than 5,700 citations support this body of work Google Scholar →
Promising but requires further study
- Whether raising plasmalogen levels consistently improves measurable outcomes in large controlled trials across neurological conditions
- Optimal dosing, duration, and population selection for plasmalogen precursor supplementation
- The specific role of plasmalogen deficiency in ALS remains under investigation; formal controlled trials have not been completed and no animal model data has been published
- Long-term effects of sustained supplementation at higher doses
Explore the research
The pages below go deeper into specific areas of this work.
Published Research
Explore published record by disease area, with links to papers on PubMed and independent validation studies.
The Colon Cancer Trial
The largest colon cancer screening study in Saskatchewan history: nearly 6,000 participants, four published papers, and an 86% detection rate using a blood-based biomarker.
RCDP research
How a compound co-invented by Dr. Goodenowe became the basis of the only Health Canada-approved human trial for a fatal childhood disease, and what happened to it after the receivership.
About Dr. Goodenowe
Credentials, academic background, and a note on the use of the title "Dr." for a PhD holder who is not a medical doctor.