Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

diagnostics

European tech initiative zooms in on digital biomarkers and mental health

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EIT Health focus­ing on dig­i­tal bio­mark­ers and men­tal & brain health (Health Europa):

“Announc­ing the sec­ond year of their inno­va­tion pro­gramme, Wild Card, EIT Health, a net­work of best-in-class inno­va­tors backed by the EU, are look­ing to chal­lenge tal­ent to deliv­er real solu­tions to the health­care mar­ket. This year, Wild Card will focus on two chal­lenges: men­tal and brain health and dig­i­tal bio­mark­ers in diag­nos­tics [Read more…] about Euro­pean tech ini­tia­tive zooms in on dig­i­tal bio­mark­ers and men­tal health

New $30M venture philanthropy fund aims at revolutionizing the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease

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Why diag­nos­ing Alzheimer’s today is so difficult—and how we can do bet­ter (Bill Gates):

“Alzheimer’s research is a fron­tier where we can dra­mat­i­cal­ly improve human life—both the lives of peo­ple who have the dis­ease and their loved ones. I’m opti­mistic that we can sub­stan­tial­ly alter the course of Alzheimer’s if we make progress in sev­er­al key areas. One of the biggest things we could do right now is devel­op a reli­able, afford­able, and acces­si­ble diag­nos­tic. [Read more…] about New $30M ven­ture phil­an­thropy fund aims at rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing the diag­no­sis of Alzheimer’s Disease

Tara Thiagarajan, Founder of Brainnovations Winner Sapien Labs, on building a global platform for brain research that truly captures the diversity of humanity

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What sur­prised you the most from the Judges’ ques­tions and feed­back dur­ing the Brain­no­va­tions Pitch Con­test?

I was pleas­ant­ly sur­prised to see the sig­nif­i­cant range and depth of knowl­edge shown by the judg­ing pan­el, lead­ing to very spe­cif­ic and use­ful ques­tions around the key chal­lenges to build our glob­al research platform.

In a nut­shell, what is the core idea behind Sapi­en Labs?

The core idea is to fur­ther our under­stand­ing of the large dif­fer­ences between indi­vid­ual brains in order to man­age our brain health and brain states bet­ter. [Read more…] about Tara Thi­a­gara­jan, Founder of Brain­no­va­tions Win­ner Sapi­en Labs, on build­ing a glob­al plat­form for brain research that tru­ly cap­tures the diver­si­ty of humanity

Jan Samzelius, CEO of Brainnovations Winner NeuraMetrix, encourages pioneers to focus on “simple, elegant solutions to big problems”

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What sur­prised you the most from the Judges’ ques­tions and feed­back dur­ing the Brain­no­va­tions Pitch Con­test last month?

Even with only a brief pre­sen­ta­tion the judges imme­di­ate­ly got the poten­tial impact of our tech­nol­o­gy to mea­sure and mon­i­tor brain health and began to think about oth­er appli­ca­tions for us – sev­er­al we had not thought about. That was fun.

In a nut­shell, what is the core idea behind Neu­raMetrix?

Typ­ing Cadence is among the strongest habit we have. If the brain is attacked by a dis­ease, the habit will begin to break – very slow­ly and in very small incre­ments. Our way of mea­sur­ing is so sen­si­tive that we can pick up changes at the lev­el of 1/100th of sec­ond – many orders of mag­ni­tude bet­ter than today’s tools.

When and how did the idea come to you?

Com­ing from data secu­ri­ty, our first idea was to use typ­ing cadence for authen­ti­ca­tion, and then were alert­ed to the brain health appli­ca­tion by an out­sider. [Read more…] about Jan Samzelius, CEO of Brain­no­va­tions Win­ner Neu­raMetrix, encour­ages pio­neers to focus on “sim­ple, ele­gant solu­tions to big problems”

Akili raises an additional $11.9M; brings Amgen, Merck, Pfizer and Shire to the digital medicine table

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akili-game—–

Akili Adds Amgen Ven­tures and M Ven­tures* to Series B Financ­ing, Increas­ing Round to $42.4 Mil­lion (press release):

“Akili Inter­ac­tive Labs, Inc. (“Akili”), a dig­i­tal med­i­cine com­pa­ny devel­op­ing nov­el, non-phar­ma­co­log­i­cal ther­a­peu­tics and diag­nos­tics for cog­ni­tive dis­or­ders, today announced an $11.9 mil­lion expan­sion of its recent Series B financ­ing. [Read more…] about Akili rais­es an addi­tion­al $11.9M; brings Amgen, Mer­ck, Pfiz­er and Shire to the dig­i­tal med­i­cine table