Visual impairments and neurodegenerative disorders can severely impact our quality of life. Prevention is fundamental but can be difficult due to the complexity and length of the assessment needed to measure visual and neurological functions. Reperio BV. is a fast-growing start-up that works on developing diagnostic tools to detect visual impairments and neurodegenerative disorders at an earlier stage than what is currently possible. Within the Open Diagnostics Ecosystem, Reperio will develop a diagnostic tool to support the early detection of Diabetic Retinopathy by measuring subtle changes in eye movements.

Alessandro Grillini, Managing Director, explains: "We chose the Open Diagnostics Ecosystem because we strongly believe in the power of networks in the Northern ecosystem."

Artificial intelligence in healthcare

Reperio, a spin-off from UMCG and member of the LIFE Cooperative, combines high-speed oculography and machine learning to capture the relation between the quality of eye movements, the underlying state of the nervous system, and the integrity of visual functions, translating this relation into actionable medical insights. Thanks to the employment of complex artificial neural networks, Reperio makes it possible to obtain a large amount of information from just a few minutes of testing. These new methods not only alleviate the work pressure for doctors by reducing measurement times by 60-80% but are also completely non-invasive and patient-friendly. This makes it possible to accurately measure also elderly and children, clinical populations are normally very difficult to assess.

Enabling telemedicine in the Northern Netherlands

Within ODE, Reperio will develop a telemedicine system for remote functional vision testing to measure the retinal sensitivity loss and eye movement alterations occurring in Diabetic Retinopathy. Eye movement data can be collected locally by General Practitioners and Opticians and analyzed in the Cloud. Then, the Cloud will send the results to a remote Ophthalmologist for a quick check. "We aim to create a virtuous new diagnostic healthcare model in the Northern Netherlands, where its need is critical, to set an example of excellence that could be adopted nationally and internationally." said Alessandro Grillini. “this will bring healthcare closer to the people who need it most while reducing costs and pressure on hospitals”. Reperio is located at the Healthy Ageing Campus Groningen.

Open Diagnostics

The Open Diagnostics Ecosystem is an initiative from the LIFE Cooperative that will turn the Northern Netherlands into a global expert in the development of diagnostics. Open Diagnostics gives access to knowledge, a strong network, and research & development facilities within the diagnostics ecosystem.

Picture from left to right: Camiel van Vught, Ilyas Haciomeroglu, Carlo Enrico Petrillo, Annemarie Booijenga. Crouched: Alessandro Grillini