SAN DIEGO– SEQSTER PDM Inc. (“SEQSTER”), the leading patient-centric healthcare technology company, announces at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference 2024 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania it will work with Boston University researchers led by Rhoda Au, PhD, Professor of Anatomy and Neurobiology at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, Diagnostics Accelerator (DxA)-funded investigator, and recipient of the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation’s (ADDF) 2023 Melvin R. Goodes Prize for Excellence in Alzheimer’s Drug Development. The project, funded by the Goodes Prize, will leverage SEQSTER’s 1-Click Records to collect health information, providing the longitudinal data needed for Dr. Au and her team to begin developing an early-stage clinical screening tool for Alzheimer’s.
“Early intervention is crucial in managing Alzheimer’s, and this project holds promise in identifying individuals at the earliest stages. We chose to use SEQSTER’s 1-Click Records because of its instant data connectivity with electronic health records,” states Dr. Au. “As a long-time investigator of the 75-year-old Framingham Heart Study, I view this tool as a way to create a Framingham-like study by aggregating all of a patient’s longitudinal health data. More importantly, SEQSTER empowers participants to decide what medical information they want to contribute, keeping the control of their medical data, while also helping accelerate scientific progress.”
SEQSTER’s 1-Click Records offers a way to streamline and simplify data collection from multiple sources, unifying a patient’s electronic health record (EHR) data. The interface allows participants to opt in to contributing their data, promoting wider participation in the study and accelerating research.
Dr. Au and her team will leverage SEQSTER’s 1-Click Records to combine participants’ current and previous health data and will link it to blood based biomarkers and digital cognitive assessments they will be conducting. Dr. Au hopes that the breadth of this data will help her develop an AI-powered screening tool that can identify whether patients are at a higher risk for Alzheimer’s or are even subtly symptomatic.
“We know that Alzheimer’s pathology appears at least 20 years before symptoms present, and we don’t yet have the biomarkers or diagnostic tools to identify these changes in real-time,” says Howard Fillit, MD, Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer of the ADDF. “Dr. Au is a pioneer in the development of digital biomarkers and screening tools, and we hope her research will enable early diagnosis and intervention for Alzheimer’s, which researchers believe could have a profound impact on the progression of the disease.”
In 2015, Former Warner-Lambert CEO and Chairman, Melvin R. Goodes, and his family established The Melvin R. Goodes Prize for Excellence in Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery alongside the ADDF. The award offers a $150,000 grant to support the winner’s future research. Dr. Rhoda Au was selected as the Goodes Prize Honoree in 2023, and this project is being funded with her prize money.
“This collaboration is another demonstration of our commitment to impact Alzheimer’s Disease while supporting individuals and their caregivers,” adds Ardy Arianpour, CEO & Co-Founder of SEQSTER. “As people may know, this is very personal for me as Alzheimer’s Disease struck both my maternal and paternal grandmothers and I will stop at nothing to fight to find a cure. By combining SEQSTER’s 1-Click Records with Boston University’s innovative research approach, I envision a future where this collaboration transforms the landscape of Alzheimer’s screening, providing individuals and families with an accessible and efficient tool for early detection.”
