The iSARC-GENETICS project, Intelligent Platform for Early Detection, Diagnostic Aid and Follow-up of Sarcopenia, in which Dawako Medtech and Sabartech, companies located in the University of Valencia Science Park (PCUV) collaborate, concludes with the development of a new non-invasive monitoring system for chronic pathologies and with the idea of giving continuity, extending and validating the technology created with a new entity of the Valencian health administration
Sarcopenia is a disease whose symptoms focus on progressive muscle weakness with loss of muscle mass and quality, mainly affecting people over 60 years of age. In the last decade, with the impetus of different working groups of specialists around the world, scientific research has exploded in this field, especially since in 2016 the World Health Organization (WHO) included sarcopenia within the ICD-10 (International Classification of Diseases) with the aim of promoting the study and treatment of this pathology in routine clinical practice.
The iSARC-GENETICS project, a consortium involving the biotechnology companies Dawako Medtech and Sabartech together with the CoMMLab group (Computational Multiscale Simulation Lab) of the University of Valencia and the Ci2B (Center for Research and Innovation in Bioengineering) of the Polytechnic University of Valencia, was born with the intention of offering a precision medicine and digital health platform for the early detection of sarcopenia, helping in the diagnosis and monitoring of this disease. Finally, after two phases of research and development, the consortium members completed the creation of a wearable ultrasound ultrasound system based on multi-array transducers and a sEMG sensor module, on flexible and deformable substrate, for the acquisition of images of the musculoskeletal system in a non-invasive and automatic way for the effective monitoring of the muscular conditions of the users.
The project, which is supported by the Valencian Innovation Agency (AVI), concluded with a last meeting this Monday at the facilities of the Parc Científic de la Universitat de València, to follow up on the latest activities of the initiative. In this regard, on the part of Sabartech, its co-founder and CTO, Javier Escobar, explained that they managed to "validate quantitative skeletal muscle ultrasound imaging biomarkers and genetic biomarkers related to sarcopenia." On the other hand, he emphasized the joint work of Dawako Medtech, Sabartech and CoMMLab, which focused on the development of an "innovative platform that facilitates the early detection of sarcopenia," and which "is currently running on a commercial cloud, allowing registered users to perform the analysis tasks that have already been designed and implemented."
The iSARC-GENETICS project was created with the intention of offering a precision medicine and digital health platform for the early detection of sarcopenia, helping in the diagnosis and monitoring of this disease
From left to right: Mª. Àngels Bernabeu, Project Manager of Dawako; Sara Nozal, Product Manager of Dawako; Eduardo Godoy, R&D Manager of Dawako; Lorena Ponce, Bioinfomatics Division Manager of Sabartech; Javier Escobar, co-founder and CTO of Sabartech; Isabel Junquera, Ci2B researcher; Julio Gomis; professor of Electronic Engineering at the UPV and Ci2B researcher. Photo: FPCUV
Escobar also highlighted the work of Sabartech, which focused "on the development of the intelligent wearable system, for which a rigid-flexible ultrasound transducer system has been designed," and ended by highlighting how Ci2B developed "all the requirements of the electronic sEMG sensor system for the capture of surface electromyography signals."
For her part, Àngels Bernabeu, project manager of Dawako Medtech, pointed out that "the research carried out is framed within the R&D strategies in the health sector, promoted at regional, national and European level on the control and prevention of chronic diseases through the use of Artificial Intelligence tools." In this sense, she added that the project "includes support for the development of non-invasive monitoring systems for chronic pathologies, including sarcopenia."
"The research carried out is framed within the R&D strategies in the health sector, promoted at regional, national and European level on the control and prevention of chronic diseases through the use of Artificial Intelligence tools", Àngels Bernabeu, project manager of Dawako Medtech
The most immediate future of the advances extracted by the consortium, Bernabeu shared, lies at a more local level in order to "give continuity, extend and validate the technology developed by the four members of the consortium, together with a new entity of the Valencian health administration, to integrate new functional, human and bacterial biomarkers and to validate the technology through a clinical study to be carried out with sarcopenic and non-sarcopenic patients over 65 years of age".
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