At age 60, Aunt Millie seems to have lost a step. Forgotten conversations. An unpaid bill here and there. Her family is beginning to wonder: Does Aunt Millie have Alzheimer's?
Maybe. Maybe not. Modern medicine currently has no way to diagnose the earliest stages of degenerative neurological diseases like Alzheimer's so that their progression can be slowed. Instead, they must wait until tissue damage is confirmed � which current technology can't detect until it's too late.
If William K. McCroskey has his way, that's about to change. The Akron-based founder of FMI Technologies is working on a new tool that can peel images of the brain back like an onion to the molecular level � where the cell-killing processes of Alzheimer's percolate.
One of a growing number of biomedical firms planting roots in Ohio, FMI is perfecting an ultra-high resolution imaging technology that not only detects physical changes in brain tissue but chemical processes that can lead to damage. Buoyed by the success of clinical trials using similar technology for the early detection of breast cancer, FMI is now pursuing a prototype of its ScintiStar™ Neuro system.
Howard Shapiro, a neurologist who heads both the neurology unit and the neurovascular lab at Akron General Medical Center, agrees that McCroskey's technology could be groundbreaking � for Ohioans and the nation.
Shapiro, whose facility is in line to conduct clinical trials using the system, says "this could explode into a whole bunch of possibilities."
Sources: William McCroskey and Howard Shapiro
Writer: Gene Monteith