10173404Engineering Biology to Decode the Human BrainClosedFast Start ResponseInnovate UKIn neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, the brain is the most powerful source of biological data. However, because it is inaccessible in living individuals, we cannot analyse it directly to understand the biological trigger of disease, markers of progression, or evaluate the molecular impact of therapies. This has created a critical bottleneck in neurological drug development, resulting in a 98% clinical trial failure rate that deprives patients of impactful therapies. epiome is solving this challenge, developing a world-first synthetic biology platform that provides virtual access to the living human brain. Our precision medicine software reconstructs the brain's molecular biological landscape - at cell and brain region-specific resolution - using data derived from a single blood sample. Enabling researchers and pharmaceutical customers to study the molecular neurobiology of living patients non-invasively, for the first time. Our ultimate aim is to get highly effective therapies to Alzheimer's and neurodegenerative disease patients faster. With the support of Innovate UK, our project will further progress our technology toward this aim, creating new methods to identify powerful markers that can predict Alzheimer's disease years before symptoms, and discover the biological mistakes responsible for this disease in the first place - thereby creating a new class of drug target - one that stops the disease at source.