For Germany alone, current forecasts predict 2.8 million dementia sufferers by 2050. At the same time, age is the main risk factor for developing neurodegenerative diseases. The problem is that people with neurodegenerative diseases are considered to require a great deal of care, and their numbers are increasing due to demographic change. This is accompanied by increasing cost pressure on health insurance companies, let alone the burden on the patients themselves, their relatives and society. So, there is an urgent need for an effective and inexpensive test that can detect indicators of neurodegenerative diseases at an early stage. Based on these early diagnoses, affected people could change their lifestyle in time and be provided with bespoke therapies before irreversible brain damage and dementia set in.

It is thanks to Klaus Gerwert that such a test now exists. The ‘immuno-infrared sensor’ invented by Gerwert and further developed by his company betaSENSE measures the structural changes of proteins in body fluids and recognises structural misfolding long before the first symptoms of disease appear. This innovation gives doctors and patients valuable time to take countermeasures at an early stage. In order to develop the test to market maturity, Gerwert initially founded iR Diagnostic IP holding in mid-2020 as a spin-off from Ruhr University Bochum and soon acquired investors for his vision. This later became betaSENSE GmbH. Gerwert hopes that health insurance companies will include the test in their range of services and that it will become part of regular check-ups in a few years' time. Thanks to Gerwert's invention and the new, very promising drugs, the course of the disease can be successfully influenced. This enables more people to live a healthy and dignified life, even in old age.