NeurAntigen for autoimmune encephalitis

Eugenia Martínez Hernández

Institut d’Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer - Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, Spain

Autoimmune encephalitis refers to a group of inflammatory diseases of the brain that affect people of all ages. They occur when the immune system mistakenly attacks the body’s own proteins, such as neurotransmitter receptors or neuronal surface proteins, resulting in complex neuropsychiatric symptoms ranging from memory and behavioural problems to seizures, drowsiness or coma.

Early diagnosis is crucial to promptly administering immunotherapy treatment and thus improving the patient’s prognosis. However, the diagnostic tests currently available on the market lack specificity and sensitivity, which leads to delays and errors in diagnosis.

This project aims to develop a new, rapid and highly accurate diagnostic test to identify the disease early and help improve its progression. In previous phases, the researchers have developed NeurAntigen, a test capable of detecting or ruling out the presence of disease-specific antibodies that target neurons in both the patient’s blood and cerebrospinal fluid. In this new phase, they will validate its diagnostic accuracy and effectiveness in a real clinical setting, with the goal of moving towards commercialisation.

NeurAntigen: A Human Neural Method for the Diagnosis of Autoimmune Encephalitis

Stage 2