First-Ever AI Test for Early Diagnosis of Alzheimer’s to Be Expanded to Diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease

By HospiMedica International staff writers
Posted on 05 Nov 2021

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A new partnership will accelerate development of the industry’s first predictive device for Alzheimer’s Disease to be expanded to diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease.

Altoida, Inc. (Washington, DC, USA) has entered into a collaboration with the Bioinformatics and Human Electrophysiology Laboratory (BiHELab), Department of Informatics, at the Ionian University (Corfu, Greece) to investigate Altoida’s medical device, an FDA Breakthrough Device being developed for early diagnosis and monitoring of Alzheimer’s disease, for early diagnosis and prediction of Parkinson’s disease onset. BiHELab is a research center specializing in the application of mathematical modeling and machine learning techniques to neurodegenerative diseases, like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

With a 10-minute series of augmented reality and digital motor activities that simulate complex activities of daily living, Altoida transforms any smartphone or tablet into the world’s most powerful medical device to assess neurocognitive function. The company won Breakthrough Designation for development of their device to use artificial intelligence to help predict conversion to Alzheimer’s, and they secured funding from the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation Diagnostics Accelerator to test their device for diagnosis in the preclinical phase of Alzheimer’s.

The three-year collaboration will kick off with the launch of the Digital Innovation HUB: Health Hub, a public-private partnership with 25 participating entities dedicated to fostering healthcare research and innovation in Greece. In that time, Altoida and BiHELab will apply and Altoida’s technology to analysis of Parkinson’s disease progression and evaluate its efficacy in diagnosing Parkinson’s in the preclinical phase.

"This is recognition of the strong clinical need for early diagnosis of Parkinson's disease, which could enable preventive and therapeutic intervention in the early stages to delay onset and improve clinical outcomes," said Ioannis Tarnanas, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer of Altoida. “We are excited to collaborate with BiHELab to further develop our technology, and to engage with the Health Hub’s scientific network to bring this application to life for the Greek population.”

"By applying innovative bioinformatics and machine learning techniques to clinical data, BiHeLab has aimed to identify novel biomarkers that are most indicative of risk of Parkinson’s disease,” said Professor Panagiotis Vlamos, Scientific Director at BiHELab. “For Parkinson’s patients, accurate prediction and early diagnosis could enable intervention before the extensive damage of dopaminergic neurons occurs."

Related Links:
Altoida, Inc.
Ionian University