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Abiant News
Abiant, Inc. Presents at Conference on Clinical Trials in Alzheimer's Disease
Deerfield, ILLINOIS - - October 30, 2009 - - Abiant, Inc. presented results of recent analysis work at the
2nd Conference on Clinical Trials in Alzheimer's Disease (CTAD 2009) in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Abiant's presentation, titled "Regional Cerebral Glucose Metabolism Predicts Decline in MCI Subjects
and Provides a Sensitive Biomarker of Disease Progression", described the Company's advances in
the measurement of glucose metabolism in patients who exhibit "prodromal", or pre-Alzheimer's
diagnosis, symptoms of cognitive impairment. The work was co-authored with researchers from the
New York University School of Medicine Center for Brain Health, led by Dr. Mony de Leon, and was
presented by Dawn Matthews, CEO of Abiant.
In the work presented, Abiant used proprietary analysis tools, to discriminate between Mild Cognitive
Impairment patients who would decline in cognitive and clinical measures over the subsequent 18
months versus those who would not. Abiant also demonstrated the ability to measure progressive
decline in cerebral glucose metabolism during the 18 months, and an important correlation between
the brain regions that declined, measured at baseline with the amount of clinical decline (changes in
cognitive scores) during the 18 months.
To accomplish this, Abiant used novel methods developed by Lisa Mosconi, PhD and colleagues at
New York University (Mosconi et al, 2005; Yi et al, 2008) , and additional pattern identification software
developed under the direction of Stephen Strother, PhD (Strother et al, 2002). The methods
developed by Mosconi et al are key to measuring changes in the hippocampus, a key region of
decline in Alzheimer's Disease. The pattern identification technology uses multivariate analysis and
other techniques to determine brain networks, or related regions, of disease or drug effect. By
measuring relationships between the regions of the brain that are affected, this approach increases
the interpretability and power of image analysis. The data for Abiant's analysis consisted of the
Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging scans of 71 subjects from the Alzheimer's Disease
Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database.
The capabilities demonstrated by Abiant are important to both drug development trials and disease
detection. In drug trials, inclusion of subjects who would not actually decline clinically, even without
drug, makes it difficult to establish therapeutic effect. The ability to better characterize a clinical trial
population can help to confirm that inclusion criteria are met, or to better interpret results. Also in drug
trials, an objective biomarker that correlates to clinical progression can provide increased power over
cognitive tests or clinical measures that have historically been subject to high variability. in disease
detection, the ability to assess prognosis of decline rather than simply diseased or not can also be
helpful in patient management.
A copy of the abstract that was presented can be found by clicking here.
Abiant designs and conducts imaging studies and performs image analysis for pharmaceutical
companies to evaluate the effects of pipeline or marketed compounds upon the central nervous
system. With funding recently received from the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF),
Abiant is also developing an image analysis diagnostic for Alzheimer's Disease and other dementias.
ADNI is a $60 million, 5-year public-private partnership to test whether serial magnetic resonance
imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET), other biological markers, and clinical and
neuropsychological assessment can be combined to measure the progression of mild cognitive
impairment (MCI) and early Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Additional information can be found at the
ADNI website.
Deerfield, ILLINOIS - - October 30, 2009 - - Abiant, Inc. presented results of recent analysis work at the
2nd Conference on Clinical Trials in Alzheimer's Disease (CTAD 2009) in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Abiant's presentation, titled "Regional Cerebral Glucose Metabolism Predicts Decline in MCI Subjects
and Provides a Sensitive Biomarker of Disease Progression", described the Company's advances in
the measurement of glucose metabolism in patients who exhibit "prodromal", or pre-Alzheimer's
diagnosis, symptoms of cognitive impairment. The work was co-authored with researchers from the
New York University School of Medicine Center for Brain Health, led by Dr. Mony de Leon, and was
presented by Dawn Matthews, CEO of Abiant.
In the work presented, Abiant used proprietary analysis tools, to discriminate between Mild Cognitive
Impairment patients who would decline in cognitive and clinical measures over the subsequent 18
months versus those who would not. Abiant also demonstrated the ability to measure progressive
decline in cerebral glucose metabolism during the 18 months, and an important correlation between
the brain regions that declined, measured at baseline with the amount of clinical decline (changes in
cognitive scores) during the 18 months.
To accomplish this, Abiant used novel methods developed by Lisa Mosconi, PhD and colleagues at
New York University (Mosconi et al, 2005; Yi et al, 2008) , and additional pattern identification software
developed under the direction of Stephen Strother, PhD (Strother et al, 2002). The methods
developed by Mosconi et al are key to measuring changes in the hippocampus, a key region of
decline in Alzheimer's Disease. The pattern identification technology uses multivariate analysis and
other techniques to determine brain networks, or related regions, of disease or drug effect. By
measuring relationships between the regions of the brain that are affected, this approach increases
the interpretability and power of image analysis. The data for Abiant's analysis consisted of the
Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging scans of 71 subjects from the Alzheimer's Disease
Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database.
The capabilities demonstrated by Abiant are important to both drug development trials and disease
detection. In drug trials, inclusion of subjects who would not actually decline clinically, even without
drug, makes it difficult to establish therapeutic effect. The ability to better characterize a clinical trial
population can help to confirm that inclusion criteria are met, or to better interpret results. Also in drug
trials, an objective biomarker that correlates to clinical progression can provide increased power over
cognitive tests or clinical measures that have historically been subject to high variability. in disease
detection, the ability to assess prognosis of decline rather than simply diseased or not can also be
helpful in patient management.
A copy of the abstract that was presented can be found by clicking here.
Abiant designs and conducts imaging studies and performs image analysis for pharmaceutical
companies to evaluate the effects of pipeline or marketed compounds upon the central nervous
system. With funding recently received from the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF),
Abiant is also developing an image analysis diagnostic for Alzheimer's Disease and other dementias.
ADNI is a $60 million, 5-year public-private partnership to test whether serial magnetic resonance
imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET), other biological markers, and clinical and
neuropsychological assessment can be combined to measure the progression of mild cognitive
impairment (MCI) and early Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Additional information can be found at the
ADNI website.
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