We at Cerelux, LLC are a group of devoted biologists, physicians and entrepreneurs who are dedicated in developing in-vitro diagnostic kits and adjuvant therapies to significantly improve stroke patient prognosis.

Complications in the brain such as severe (malignant) edema (SE) and hemorrhagic transformation (HT) after thrombectomy can significantly degrade the prognosis and health outcomes of patients. These complications also significantly increase the length of hospital stay and the cost of treatment. HT can occur within 2-7 days after thrombectomy; this condition causes bleeding within the post-stroke brain, further injuring the tissue undergoing recovery. In addition, the prediction of HT could have a significant impact on post-thrombectomy care. If HT is predicted, better control of blood pressure and initiation of any anticoagulation pharmacotherapy could be delayed or avoided. Another complication is SE in the brain. Triggered by hypoxia and inflammation, this severe swelling can result in compression of the brainstem and potential mortality after stroke. Patients with SE need surgical decompression with a craniotomy, but the procedure should optimally be performed early before the edema has caused further brain injury. Neuroimaging such as CT scans are used but only document the edema once it has occurred. Therefore, while thrombectomy provides a significant and clinically important outcome benefit for ELVO patients, there remains a clinical need for biomarkers of SE and HT to provide prognostic insight into neurological outcomes that guide individual patient treatment and rehabilitation following thrombectomy.

One of the worst sequelae from stroke is vascular contributions to cognitive impairment and dementia (VCID), which occurs in 25-30% of stroke patients. While no disease-modifying treatments exist for VCID, early detection will signal that the patient requires additional medical attention and enhanced rehabilitation exercises to minimize the disability. By prospectively enrolling thrombectomy patients’ blood samples in a stroke tissue bank (BACTRAC; NCT03153683). we have analyzed the inflammatory protein and gene expression both locally in the ischemic tissue, as well as systemically in arterial blood. Using machine learning methods such as extremely randomized trees (ERT) for and statistical modeling we are pinpointing the biosignature to prognosticate the outcome. We identified inflammatory cytokines and chemokines that are predictors of edema, stroke infarct volume and functional recovery. Using this same approach, we are identifying markers associated with cognitive performance.

There are two treatment options for ischemic stroke. Only one FDA-approved pharmaceutical treatment is currently available to treat stroke, tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA) which degrades the clots. The other, mechanical thrombectomy (MT) is becoming more common to physically remove clots through interventional procedures. While t-PA and MT are effective strategies to re-establish blood flow, patients still have significant long-term effects from the injury, such as paralysis and difficulty controlling movement. While thrombectomy provides a significant and clinically important outcome benefit for stroke, there remains a considerable clinical need for new adjuvant therapeutics to maximize positive neurological outcomes. The lack of treatment options is due, in part, to gaps in research on the complex localized, stroke-related molecular-cellular interactions in the human condition.

Cerelux, LLC is discovering in-vitro diagnostics and adjuvant therapies by investigating the cellular and molecular events occurring during a stroke in the vicinity of the infarct. We have created a biobank which includes blood and thrombus samples directly from the brain. These samples provide insight into the early molecular events occurring in stroke to discover 1) biomarkers to predict clinical outcomes and 2) therapeutic targets for adjuvant treatments for the thrombectomy procedure.