The Foundry’s Ed Barnard contributed to one of the innovations from Berkeley Lab that has been honored with a 2022 R&D 100 Award. The award, presented by R&D Magazine and selected by an independent panel of judges, recognizes the year’s 100 most innovative and disruptive technology products from industry, academia, and government-sponsored research.
The technology, titled “Spectral Phenotyping with MirroRx”, can help with early diagnoses of Alzheimer’s disease. Diseases such as Alzheimer’s are difficult to diagnose before symptoms occur, while others like aggressive cancers need to be detected early for improved survival rates. Berkeley Lab scientists have developed MirroRx, a biomarker technology that accurately predicts disease status. The disease phenotype is analyzed by measuring how the patient’s endogenous molecules vibrate upon exposure to infrared light. The difference in the vibrational profile of disease and control samples is so visible that the spectral process is like “cellular fingerprinting.” Early tests with presymptomatic Alzheimer’s patients accurately predicted those who eventually developed the disease.
The development team led by Foundry user Cynthia McMurray includes Edward Barnard, Ben Brown, Dhruba Ghosh, Lila Lovergne, and Aris Polyzos.
Read about the discovery of the technology in this press release
