Olaris, a Waltham, Massachusetts-based healthcare company, has received a new grant from The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF). The funding is expected to go toward identifying biomarkers for the early, accurate assessment of Parkinson’s disease (PD).
PD impacts more than six million people around the world, and its symptoms are often hidden from physicians for the first five or ten years. Olaris says it will work to “uncover the metabolic fingerprint of Parkinson’s patients” using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and AI algorithms.
“Several proposed PD biomarkers have failed to correlate with the diagnosis or progression of the disease,” Elizabeth O’Day, PhD, founder and CEO of Olaris, said in a prepared statement. “With this support from The Michael J. Fox Foundation, we will apply our proprietary metabolite profiling platform and customized machine learning algorithms in an effort to identify biomarkers that can accurately detect PD at its earliest onset.”
“Objective markers of Parkinson’s onset and progression would be game-changing for clinical care and research,” Bradford Casey, PhD, MJFF Associate Director of Research Programs, said in the same statement. “Our foundation supports work toward critical biomarker tools, and we are proud to support Olaris in this effort.”
Michael has more than 16 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.