About Us
NeuroQuest's team is comprised of medical experts and business professionals from around the world with extensive experience in innovation, development, and clinical research.
Our mission is to provide patients and physicians with NeuroScreen®, our accurate and affordable blood-based assay for screening and monitoring asymptomatic Alzheimer’s disease.
Our Story
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a devastating, progressive neurodegenerative disorder that gradually impairs memory, cognitive function, and behavior, primarily affecting older adults. It is caused by the accumulation of amyloid plaque (Aβ42) in the brain, which can begin up to 20 years before the appearance of symptoms. While recent data indicate that treatments for AD are significantly more effective when given to asymptomatic individuals, there has been no practical way to identify these patients until now.
As we age, our body goes through an array of changes. From wrinkles on our skin through changes in our metabolism to aches in our muscles, research shows that over time, our immune system weakens as well. We become more susceptible to new diseases and less tolerant of external and internal changes. Our experts hypothesized that this natural process makes it easier for Aβ42 to enter the brain and harder for our body to clear it out. In other words, they believed that Alzheimer's disease might have an immune component to it. NeuroQuest was born from the idea of using the immune system's reaction to change as an early indicator of AD. Doing so will allow us to predict the presence and accumulation of Aβ42 to detect the disease before the appearance of symptoms.
Our team brings together unique skills and immense experience from all relevant disciplines acquired over two decades of work. NeuroQuest is supported by the South Carolina Research Authority (SCRA) and Trendlines investment group.
The problem that NeuroQuest is trying to solve is identifying asymptomatic individuals as early and effectively as possible. The company has developed NeuroScreen® testing service, a novel, blood-based diagnostic tool for AD during the preclinical stage of the disease. The service is based on our unique algorithm that uses immune blood-based biomarkers (leukocytes) to predict the presence and quantity of Aβ42 in the brain. Its ability to detect AD progression years before symptoms appear will allow earlier clinical intervention and enhance treatment efficiency.
We previously collaborated with AIBL (the Australian Imaging, Biomarker, and Lifestyle) on a successful research project that included more than 500 individuals. The results, published in Alzheimer's & Dementia, demonstrated that the assay had 97% sensitivity and 88% specificity when diagnosing Aβ-positive asymptomatic individuals with AD. We have also worked with Vikor Scientific LLC, a certified clinical laboratory in Charleston, SC, on our fall 2024 clinical study, and with Yeda (the Weizmann Institute Technology Transfer Arm, Israel) to assess and improve our service constantly.
Our Vision
Positron emission tomography (PET) neuroimaging and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) measurements have been the customary diagnostic methods for AD used by healthcare providers. These can yield an accurate diagnosis of AD even in asymptomatic patients. These methods, however, are invasive and expensive; therefore, they are mostly used for confirmatory diagnosis rather than for early detection.
NeuroQuest's vision is to present physicians with an easy-to-administer, blood-based biomarker test that can identify asymptomatic patients presenting with very low loads of Aβ42 in the brain (who are likely to progress to symptomatic AD).
This service is more feasible and will allow an earlier diagnosis of AD, a key factor in treatment success
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Affordable, accessible, and immediate tool for AD screening
In 2023, the FDA approved the first two disease-modifying therapies that can reduce Aβ load in the brain. Research strongly suggests that these drugs appear to be more effective the earlier they are introduced to the patient, with maximal efficiency for individuals in the asymptomatic phase of AD. This means that patients need to be identified before damage starts to build up and become irreversible, leading to a chain reaction of decline.
To treat individuals before symptoms appear, our vision is to change the standard of care, establishing that everyone age 50+ needs to be regularly screened for AD. NeuroScreen® testing service will change the world by providing the best possible product at the lowest possible price, detecting the disease in millions of asymptomatic individuals with ease and efficiency.
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Changing the standard of care for AD screening
Our Partners, Investors, and Collaborators
Dr. Mintzer is a professor of psychiatry, neurology, physiology, and neuroscience at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston, South Carolina. He is chief of the Division of Geriatric Psychiatry and Fellowship programs at MUSC and co-director of Alzheimer’s Research & Clinical Programs. Dr. Mintzer serves in numerous leadership roles in organizations furthering the treatment of Alzheimer’s and age-related diseases.
Jacobo Mintzer,
MD, MBA
Chairman of the Board
Meet Our Team
Mr. Brosh has over 20 years of experience in senior- and executive-level accounting and management positions at public and private companies. He was promoted to CEO of Trendlines in October 2023 after serving as CFO since 2018. Mr. Brosh received his BA (Hons) in accounting and economics from Tel Aviv University and is a Certified Public Accountant in Israel.
Haim Brosh
Director
Mr. Maxwell has founded and led numerous successful investment partnerships over the last 16 years. Mr. Maxwell is an award-winning real estate developer and a former US Naval Aviator. He has a BA in business from Texas Tech University and an MBA with distinction from The Citadel.
Jason Maxwell,
MBA
CEO
Mr. Rhodes began his professional career in 1979 as the director of marketing at the Chicago branch of Bank Leumi. In 1985, he relocated to Israel with his family and was appointed deputy manager of Bank Leumi’s International Division. In 1993, Mr. Rhodes founded the Israeli business development consultancy Trendlines International with Todd Dollinger and in 1998 joined SRD Medical, an Israeli medical device company. He holds a BA from Harvard and an MBA from the University of Chicago.
Director
Steve Rhodes,
MBA
Dr. Rissman is a Professor of Physiology and Neuroscience and the W.M. Keck Endowed Professor in Medicine at the University of California San Diego. He is a PI at the VA San Diego and leads the ADCS Biomarker Core and ADRC Neuropathology Core. Dr. Rissman is the Alzheimer’s Clinical Trials Consortium (ACTC) Biorepository Unit Lead and the founding Director of the Neuroscience Translational Research Division. He is also the founding director of the ATRI Biomarker Laboratory and Biorepository, where he works to identify biomarkers for preclinical AD and better understand how treatment parameters may impact these biomarkers.
Chairman of the
Scientific Advisory Board
Robert Rissman,
PhD
Dr. Gu is the Head of the Innate Phagocytosis Laboratory in Australia and has published over 60 articles in high-impact journals and received many awards and grants. He graduated from Shanghai Medical University and obtained his master’s and PhD degrees from the University of Sydney. During his PhD and postdoc study, he discovered the non-functional P2X7 (nfP2X7), now the therapeutic target for various solid tumors. Dr. Gu was awarded “Young Investigator of the Year” in 2002 by the Australian Cure Cancer Foundation, the prestigious “Sesqui Fellowship” of the University of Sydney in 2004, and the ARC Future Fellowship in 2012. Based on his work, he has invented novel early screening/diagnostic tools for AD, using immunological and genetic approaches.
Chief Research and
Innovation Officer
Ben Gu,
PhD
Communications Manager
Noam is a former IDF soldier trained in field intelligence. She graduated with honors from the College of Charleston in 2024 with a BA in Communication. She’s qualified in science communication, social media management, and communication research.
Noam Calev-Zarom
Xin Huang,
PhD
Lead Researcher
Dr. Huang is a Neurodegeneration and Neuropathology research officer at The Florey Institute in Melbourne, Australia. He has an undergraduate degree and a master's degree in medicine. After obtaining his doctorate in 2008, Dr. Huang worked at the ANZAC Research Institute of the University of Sydney, where he researched macro-nutrition and geriatric diseases and published important results in the journals of Obesity and Cell Metabolism. In 2013, Dr. Huang joined the Innate Immunity Laboratory at The Florey. There, he worked with Dr. Ben Gu to study the role of innate phagocytosis in multiple sclerosis, age-related macular disease, and Alzheimer's disease. His research led to the discovery of the leukocyte surface biomarkers for detecting preclinical Alzheimer's disease, as published in the Alzheimer's & Dementia journal.