Our Story
I have been using AGEomics technology to explore the underlying mechanisms of complex conditions like diabetes and arthritis for 23 years. In 2015 I was approached by colleagues from the University of Bologna. They asked if I could measure protein modifications in blood samples from children with and without autism.
I immediately felt a deep connection to this request. In my own family, I have loved ones on the autism spectrum — one with mild, high-functioning autism and another with a much more severe form. I had seen firsthand how challenging and emotionally demanding it can be, both for the children and their parents. So, when the opportunity arose to apply my research to better understand autism, I didn’t hesitate for a moment. It felt personal — a way to bring science and compassion together to make a difference.
The discovery phase study was a major milestone — it was published in the peer-reviewed journal Molecular Autism and received worldwide media attention. For many families affected by autism, this brought a sense of hope. I still remember the hundreds of heartfelt emails I received from parents asking if their child could take the blood test.
That response strengthened my resolve to validate our findings in a larger, independent group. The opportunity came when I moved to Qatar, where autism was becoming more prevalent and had been declared a national research priority.
In 2023, our team successfully completed and published the validation study in the journal Molecular Psychiatry. The results confirmed what we had hoped for — the ASDproteinpattern blood test achieved over 80% accuracy in both the discovery and validation phases. It remains the only blood test to reach this level of accuracy for identifying autism. We are now step closer to bring the ASDproteinpattern blood test for accurately screening autism.
