Berg and University of Miami extend partnership to battle cardiac dysfunction, heart failure

Aug 23 2015

Berg, a Boston-based biopharmaceutical company, and the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine are extending its collaboration to battle cardiac dysfunction and heart failure. According to the American Heart Association, cardiovascular disease is the leading global cause of death, accounting for 17.3 million deaths per year, a number that is expected to grow to more than 23.6 million by 2030. The collaboration will utilize artificial intelligence to unlock new methods to battle the disease as there is a critical unmet need for markers for early detection of cardiac dysfunction and heart failure, which the partnership is aiming to fulfill.

"Through this collaboration with Berg, which merges the applications of technology and medicine, we expect to uncover novel insights into diseased environments as we work to reduce and further eradicate conditions such as cardiac dysfunction and heart failure," said Pascal J. Goldschmidt, M.D., Dean of the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine and CEO of UHealth - the University of Miami Health System. "The University of Miami will continue to form unique industry-academia relationships with innovative companies like Berg as we both work for meaningful discoveries and improved patient outcomes."

The University of Miami will provide Berg access to valuable clinical tissue samples obtained with patients' consent from its Miller School of Medicine. This is the first time the University of Miami has given a private research company access to these samples. These key assets, rich in data given South Florida's diverse population, are comprised of healthy and diseased cohorts.

"Berg will utilize its artificial intelligence based Interrogative Biology™ platform to analyze the tissues in an effort to uncover novel biomarkers for the prevention of cardiac dysfunction and heart failure," said Rangaprasad Sarangarajan, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer and Co-Founder of Berg Biosystems. "This will enable stratification of patients based on disease onset and progression, and to facilitate timely clinical intervention to improve patient outcomes."

Berg's Interrogative Biology™ platform has previously produced clinical assets in cancer and metabolic diseases, as well as diagnostics assets and markers in diseases including prostate cancer.

"The platform has the ability to look at disease and drug induced toxicity to predict heart failure and dysfunction," said Niven R. Narain, Co-founder, President and Chief Technology Officer of Berg. "In partnership with the University of Miami's leading researchers and with access to their diverse tissue samples, we can make life-saving strives in the discovery process for one of the most debilitating diseases."

According to Narain, Berg's ongoing collaborative relationship with the University of Miami is due to the growing environment for biotechnology and innovation in Florida.

Berg, the namesake of Chairman and Co-founder, Carl E. Berg, together with Co-Founders, Mitch Gray, Managing Director and Niven R. Narain, is a leading precision medicine company merging biology with Bayesian AI to fundamentally understand patient populations as a foundation to creating the next generation of drugs and diagnostics. Berg harnesses the power of technology to allow the patient biology to inform the direction of patient care.