Technology
The problem
Existing tests are slow and unable to distinguish between types of dementia
Dementia is the term used to describe a set of symptoms associated with progressive loss of brain function. There are over 100 forms of dementia, none of which can be completely cured yet although 45% of risks are modifiable and 2 disease-modified drugs have been approved recently.
Supporting every person with dementia, through formal care and the informal care supplied by family and friends, costs the global economy trillions every year.
Early and specific diagnosis is essential to reducing these demands and improving outcomes for dementia patients by providing the information needed to design tailored treatment plans that can delay progression and reduce severity of symptoms, resulting in a higher quality of life for dementia patients. Existing diagnostic methods, such as behavioural testing and cognitive scoring, can only differentiate between types of dementia when significant time is spent with each patient across multiple appointments.
This time-intensive approach increases costs and delays effective treatment, in turn creating a higher burden of care and cost to support. It can take years to get a more specific diagnosis and, although brain imaging techniques such as PET and MRI are available, they are costly and only effective when it comes to late-stage diagnosis. Even upcoming blood biomarker solutions are only effective for one type of dementia - Alzheimer’s disease.
The solution
An accurate test for identifying causes of dementia, earlier
Leading from more than 20 years of experience in Raman spectroscopy and more than 12 years of research on Raman spectroscopy for diagnosing neurodegenerative diseases, Brainalyze have developed a unique solution that is quick, accurate, and effective even at the pre-manifest stages.
Through the development of a spectroscopy method initially used to distinguish between different types of bacteria, Brainalyze have devised a new multi-laser method that creates a light-based fingerprint from biomarkers within a blood sample. This ‘optical fingerprint’ can be used to distinguish between different causes of dementia as it encompasses holistic and unbiased information rather than a single protein. Data from pre-clinical trials on patient samples have found this method to be accurate in 93% of cases for identifying Alzheimer’s, with similar results for other neurodegenerative diseases and for tracking Huntington’s disease.
As a simple, cost-effective solution that supports earlier detection and identification of causes of dementia, Brainalyze aim to address the significant worldwide spend on dementia both in diagnosis and in ongoing care.
Trialling faster detection for dementia patients
Brainalyze refined their solution through work with the NHS. With access to a cohort of 141 patients already diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, some of whom had waited 2 years for a diagnosis, Brainalyze were able to recreate these detections faster and with a high degree of accuracy.
Successful and progressing patent applications
Brainalyze’s diagnostic aid is different to the antibody-based blood tests already in use in some markets. These tests can only detect Alzheimer’s disease but also require specialised labs and kits whereas Brainalyze’s simple test is holistic, works across dementia types, and is rapid. To secure the future of their solution and further progress, a patent application protecting the method and device technology has already been awarded in the US and is pending elsewhere.
Winning grant funding to continue research and development
The team have secured Alzheimer’s Research UK Fellowship funding to continue their research, as well as a £1.2 million UKRI Cross-Council grant as part of the interdisciplinary HOpE project for further technology validation.
Demonstrating early detection and differential diagnosis
The team have analysed 100s of patient blood samples, with further validation on-going. The results clearly establish early detection capabilities of Brainalyze's blood test.
Progress
Brainalyze's advancements towards improving outcomes for the 10 million people diagnosed with dementia every year.
Publications
Devitt, G., Michopoulou, S., Kadalayil, L., Hanrahan, N., Prosser, A., Ghosh, B., Mudher, A., Kipps, C. and Mahajan, S., 2025.
Classification of Alzheimer’s disease in a mixed clinical cohort using biofluid Raman spectroscopy. medRxiv, pp.2025-02.
Devitt, G., Hanrahan, N., Moreno, M.R., Mudher, A. and Mahajan, S., 2024.
A Novel Spectral Barcoding and Classification Approach for Complex Biological Samples using Multi-excitation Raman Spectroscopy (MX-Raman).
Huefner, A., Kuan, W.L., Mason, S.L., Mahajan, S. and Barker, R.A., 2019.
Serum Raman spectroscopy as a diagnostic tool in patients with Huntington's disease.
United States Patent Application 20250052683
MULTI-EXCITATION RAMAN SPECTROSCOPY METHOD AND APPARATUS