Imagine growing a tiny, simplified version of your own brain in a lab dish to see how you sleep. Instead of guessing why you're tired, doctors can test your specific brain cells to see how they react to sleep loss. It's like having a biological twin on a chip that predicts health risks before they show up in a clinic.
Sleep disorders are early indicators of neurodegeneration, but current diagnostics are generic and often detect diseases like Parkinson's too late. There is a lack of personalized tools to monitor individual sleep pathophysiology in a controlled environment.
A biohybrid 'cyborganoid' brain model and a 3D electrophysiology device to monitor all neurons in a 3D arrangement. Additionally, an e-home sleep monitoring device for data collection from healthy volunteers and PD patients.
If you are a drug discovery firm dealing with high failure rates in neurodegeneration trials — this project developed a cyborganoid model that allows for testing sleep-related biomarkers. This enables more accurate pharmacological research into Parkinson's Disease.
If you are a wearable health tech company dealing with a lack of biological validation for sleep trackers — this project developed a way to correlate wearable data with 3D electrophysiology in vitro. This allows for the creation of more accurate, biologically-backed sleep monitoring tools.
If you are a clinical diagnostic laboratory dealing with the late detection of neurodegenerative diseases — this project developed the first tool for Parkinson's Disease early diagnosis based on sleep anomalies. This helps identify high-risk patients much earlier than traditional methods.
Based on available project data, the specific commercial price or cost per test is not mentioned; only the EU contribution of EUR 3,615,375 for development is listed.
The project involves 3 SMEs and focuses on micromanufacturing and lab-on-a-chip technology, suggesting a path toward industrial production, though specific scaling volumes are not provided.
Based on available project data, there are no specific details regarding licensing agreements or patent filings, though the consortium includes 3 SMEs likely to commercialize the results.
The project period runs from 2023-03-01 to 2027-02-28, indicating that the proof of principle will be completed by early 2027.
The project aims to integrate with e-home sleep monitoring and wearable trackers to provide a predictive medicine tool for routine screening.
The consortium is well-balanced for technology transfer, featuring a 43% industry ratio with 3 SMEs (Organotherapeutics Gmbh, Atlas Neuroengineering, and SleepActa) and 4 universities. This structure ensures that the high-level research from the University of Pisa and others is directly linked to commercial entities capable of microfabrication and signal processing.
Contact the University of Pisa research office regarding the NAP project.
Contact us to connect with the NAP consortium for early access to the PD diagnostic tool.
