NEW YORK — ADM Diagnostics said on Tuesday that it has been awarded a National Institutes of Health grant worth up to nearly $2 million to develop a test for traumatic brain injury.
The Phase II Small Business Innovation Research grant includes $1 million in the first year and as much as $960,000 in the following year, pending approval of an interim report and funding availability, ADM said.
With the money, the company aims to determine whether brain scan data from thousands of athletes and other people who have been exposed to repeated head impact, along with blood biomarkers, can be used to detect the effects of traumatic brain injury and differentiate them from Alzheimer's disease. The biomarkers include the proteins amyloid, tau, and neurofilament light, as well as inflammatory markers, according to Northbrook, Illinois-based ADM.
Collaborators on the project include investigators from the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, the Center for Transformative Neuroscience at the University of Nevada, the Boston University Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Center, and Indiana University.
"This grant will support our path toward a robust diagnostic product that can aid in the care and treatment development for those experiencing repetitive head impact," ADM CEO Dawn Matthews said in a statement. "We are excited to pursue this effort, which will benefit from a unique combination of high-quality data, the expertise of our collaborators, and our experience in applying [artificial intelligence] methods to detect and discriminate dementias."