Lygature solidifies role in initiatives advancing diagnosis and management of neurodegenerative diseases

The Lygature-facilitated Innovative Health Initiative-funded PREDICTOM project brings researchers from academia and industry together with the goal of developing an AI-driven screening platform for early detection of Alzheimer's disease. The aim of the project is to find scalable and cost-efficient diagnostic markers, tools and procedures that can be used to identify people with a higher risk of developing Alzheimer's even before symptoms manifest, with the goal to prevent or delay dementia.

Pioneering early Alzheimer's detection 

PREDICTOM's academic lead and clinical trial coordinator Dag Aarsland (Professor of Old Age Psychiatry at King's College London and research lead at Stavanger University Hospital) elaborates: "What makes PREDICTOM unique is that we try to find easy and accessible diagnostic tools that can be applied in the household and at the general practitioner’s level. Bringing diagnosis to the household and primary care will relieve pressure from the clinics and from the healthcare system overall."

Timo Schirmer, PREDICTOM's industrial leader and Director of the MR Applied Science Laboratory at GE HealthCare explains: “By providing a tool that can easily identify those people with early signs of dementia, we expect to significantly decrease the personal and financial burden of dementia in Europe and around the world.”

A decade-long involvement 

In PREDICTOM, Lygature brings its longstanding expertise in initiatives that envision to advance the diagnosis and management of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease (AD). A testament to Lygature's dedication to this field is its continuous involvement (for almost a decade) in international Innovative Medicines Initiative-funded projects such as RADAR-CNS and RADAR-AD the assessment of depression, multiple sclerosis and epilepsy (RADAR-CNS) and Alzheimer's disease (RADAR-AD).  

Lygature has also been involved (since 2021) in the European Platform for Neurodegenerative Diseases (EPND), which seeks to accelerate the discovery of diagnostics and treatment for neurodegenerative diseases by removing barriers to data and sample sharing. Robin Verjans, Program Manager at Lygature adds: “PREDICTOM's consortium will collaborate with EPND to achieve our shared goals, so we at Lygature are very happy to be contributing to both initiatives". 

Thus, in PREDICTOM, Lygature is proud to be building on the acquired knowledge in all these projects and to cultivate its relationships with partners in the field of AD diagnostics. Ensuring the success of all these initiatives allows Lygature to have the biggest possible impact on the field of AD diagnostics and treatment. 

Interview series 

Recently, Lygature's communication team conducted a series of interviews with PREDICTOM's leaders who explained their work on the project and ambitions to transform AD care by bringing diagnosis to the household and primary care. One such interview featured Lygature's Program Manager Robin Verjans who talked about Lygature's role in PREDICTOM, where Robin works together with Natasja van Velthoven (Program Manager at Lygature) to ensure effective project management that will ultimately help achieve PREDICTOM’s goals. Robin explains: "Our hands-on experience with establishing, driving, monitoring, and reporting on projects of this size and complexity increases the chances of these projects to succeed in achieving their goals."

Let's connect 

If you want to learn more about PREDICTOM and Lygature's role in the project, please contact Robin Verjans at robin.verjans@lygature.org.  

Do you have a project idea you want to discuss with our Lygature team? Our Strategy director Jon de Vlieger would be happy to hear from you. Get in touch with him at jon.devlieger@lygature.org.