Dementia – a diagnosis that fills many with fear, because by the time symptoms appear, the disease is usually already well advanced. This explains the high hopes pinned on a prognostic test developed by Prof. Dr. Klaus Gerwert and his team at the Center for Protein Diagnostics (PRODI) at Ruhr University Bochum. He received the NRW Innovation Award for this achievement in fall 2023. The award was presented by Mona Neubaur, Secretary of Commerce, Industry, Climate Protection, and Energy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. On March 15, 2024, she visited the founding director of PRODI in Bochum and learned firsthand how the test is now being transferred into application with the help of betaSENSE, a company spun off from PRODI.

Secretary Mona Neubaur: “Spin-offs such as BetaSENSE help bring medical innovations to market, making them available to many patients. At the same time, they support the economy and are therefore an important location factor. I have great respect for how you combine the important research at Ruhr University with the economy. This encourages young scientists in North Rhine-Westphalia to believe in themselves, their teams, and their research.”