The Spanish Association of Bioenterprises (AseBio) emphasizes that advances in biomarkers and artificial intelligence (AI) are opening the door to earlier detection and characterization of Alzheimer’s, facilitating the identification of individuals with a higher likelihood of progression and allowing action in the early stages of the disease.
Coinciding with World Alzheimer’s Day, AseBio has analyzed these advances together with its partner ADmit Therapeutics. Its executive director and co-founder, Marta Barrachina, has explained that currently the pathology is approached from a global perspective, after years focused almost exclusively on brain damage.
This expanded vision integrates bioenergetic, inflammatory, immunological, and genetic dimensions and, according to Barrachina, is favoring a more comprehensive understanding of Alzheimer’s and opening new avenues for the design of therapies.
In this context, Barrachina has stressed the importance of early intervention, especially in stages where the clinical evolution of the patient is still not well defined. Along these lines, ADmit Therapeutics is developing "MAP-AD", an "in vitro" test with CE-IVDR marking aimed at predicting the transition from mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer’s dementia, providing complementary information to brain pathology data and other clinical parameters.
As the CEO has detailed, this tool integrates blood-based biomarkers based on mitochondrial DNA methylation with risk factors such as the ApoE genotype, age, and neuropsychological assessment, combined with "next generation sequencing" and "machine learning" technologies.
In relation to AI and "machine learning", she has highlighted its potential to process complex data sets and offer an approach that would be "impossible" if the information were analyzed in isolation and with traditional methods.
From research to clinical use
Barrachina has warned that the emergence of these new technologies poses the challenge of their effective incorporation into healthcare practice, conditioned by procedures and regulatory frameworks that can delay their implementation.
In the case of "MAP-AD", although the CE-IVDR marking allows the company to begin collaboration with neurologists and advance in commercialization, Barrachina has clarified that it is still necessary to "overcome the established resistances posed by usual procedures".
The person in charge of ADmit Therapeutics anticipates a "very hopeful" future in the coming years, marked by a more comprehensive view of Alzheimer's and by the integration of new data through artificial intelligence tools. "All this data and the artificial intelligence that we have already incorporated are making Alzheimer's start a path similar to that of oncology, which already allows for the monitoring and treatment of oncology patients in a very personalized way," she concluded.