Activas Diagnostics $1 million NIH Award
A home-based sleep monitoring invention developed by University of Maine researchers that has the potential to help detect early symptoms of mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease in elders has received a $1 million Small Business Innovation Research Award from the National Institute of Health’s Institute on Aging.
The two-year NIH Phase II award to Activas Diagnostics LLC, founded by UMaine professors Marie Hayes (psychology) and Ali Abedi (electrical and computer engineering), focuses on bringing the spin-off company’s patented SleepMove product — a fitted mattress undersheet instrumented with 16 hybrid wireless sensors — to market as a new approach to diagnostics and monitoring in early stage neurological disease, including Alzheimer’s disease.