About Us
World-leaders in multiple sclerosis imaging
Queen Square Analytics offers comprehensive capabilities in contract research for neurological clinical trials, with a focus on multiple sclerosis (MS). Our team has a collective experience of more than a century in MS clinical trials and neurodegenerative disorders.
Our Story
QSA's heritage goes back to the MRI research unit at UCL which has been managing and analysing clinical trial data for over a decade. What started as a very laborious process of examining films in the 1990s is rapidly transforming with the commoditisation of MRI scans combined with extensive innovation in imaging processing technologies to process and manage those scans. QSA builds on UCL's leadership in medical imaging expertise and innovation with industrial grade services and technology innovation to automate image receipt, processing, quality checking of extracted biomarkers with full auditability
INNOVATION
Technology
More than 2.8 million people worldwide and 1.2 million in the EU live with multiple sclerosis (MS). MS affects young adults, causing significant disability early in life. Clinicians define MS categories based on the clinical course. However, the clinical course does not relate to underlying causes, creating a mismatch between the diagnosed categories and the disease mechanisms. As a consequence of this mismatch, treatments, which are selected based on symptoms and disease course, may not be effective because they do not target underlying mechanisms. Measurable disease markers, such as those extracted from brain images or blood, reflect the underpinning disease biology.
With the availability of large data sets and artificial intelligence (AI), we can now recognise patterns related to disease subtypes that were once impossible to detect. At the intersection of clinical neurology and computer science, QSA aims to redefine how MS subtypes are classified using AI applied to quantifiable measures (imaging and blood) that reflect the disease biology more directly than clinical symptoms. Data-driven subtypes are then matched with treatments that target the identified biological changes, ultimately enabling the selection of effective therapies. Because changes in brain images and blood biomarkers precede clinical deterioration, staging patients in data-driven subtypes will predict disability worsening. QSA has access to large data sets from clinical trials, observational cohorts and real-world clinical data that have enabled the development of technology which defines data-driven MS subtypes in adults and children. This innovation provides a revolutionary computational framework that will use routinely available data generated at the point of care while preserving patient privacy to subtype MS patients. It will improve how patients are selected into clinical trials and will allow clinicians to choose the best therapy for each patient.
HISTORY
Pioneering Pedigree
1992: Clinical Trial Office Establishment (Beta-Interferon study)
2016: European Horizon 2020 grant funded
2018: Machine learning models for patient stratification in Alzheimer’s paper
2020: AI routinely used in medical image processing of MS in academic research
2020: Machine learning for patient selection in MS trials on Preprint server
2020: Queen Square Analytics incorporated
2021: SuStain research published in Nature Communications