September 10, 2001 

BioSignia, Inc. Partners With Duke University to Conduct Stroke Study


Research Triangle Park, NC - BioSignia, Inc., a developer of evidence-based statistical models that can predict the likelihood of disease onset, can forecast disease complications and can make it possible to comprehensively assess morbidity and mortality, announced its sponsorship of a study on stroke through the Duke Center for Clinical Health Policy Research. The study will test BioSignia's patented Synthesis Analysis™, which allows medical evidence from differing data sets to be combined into powerful disease prediction equations. Physicians can use the BioSignia tool to assess risk, educate patients about risk and monitor intervention approaches. Additionally, researchers can use the technology to construct new prediction equations that include more recent medical findings.

"We face the challenge of how to combine the different data plus other unmeasured factors,'' said Greg Samsa, Ph.D., associate professor of Community and Family Medicine, associate director of Duke's CCHPR and principle investigator for the stroke study. "Generally, we work with one variable at a time and build a model one step at a time with the assumption that all the information is available from a single data set. BioSignia has the statistical technology that puts a different spin on that process,'' continued Samsa. "The study's goal is to continue to build models with the latest information from different data sets."

BioSignia uses Synthesis Analysis™ to construct predictive equations that assess personal risk for the onset of coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke and other chronic diseases. Other equations are used to predict disease mortality. The technology allows BioSignia to incorporate the newest risk factors as they are discovered and validated, without conducting a longitudinal study.

"Independent, academic validation is necessary to promote the technology's practical use,'' said Guizhou Hu, Ph.D., vice president of research and development for BioSignia and co-developer of the patented Synthesis Analysis™. "The study will first test the technology in an actual data set to verify that it works in practice, and then perform modeling work that will illustrate the use of the technology.''

Once the six-month study is complete, BioSignia and Duke will develop a joint publication from the study results. The stroke study is one in a series of relationships that BioSignia has maintained with different researchers at Duke.
"We have had a great working relationship with several medical professionals and researchers at Duke,'' said Tim Smith, president and CEO of BioSignia. "They have not only supported the concepts behind the technology, but also the various day to day applications that come from a tool like Synthesis Analysis™. It has many practical medical applications.''

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