Research Services
Insights Biomarkers
AMRA’s Insights Biomarkers bring another layer of information to the table, which we’ve achieved by thoughtfully combining multiple imaging biomarkers and subject-specific characteristics.
Why Insights Biomarkers?
Satisfying the need for more descriptive, functionally-relevant fat and muscle assessment methodologies, by taking you where others simply cannot.
Although a detailed assessment of fat, muscle, and organ biomarkers is critical for a deeper understanding of metabolic and musculoskeletal disease, determining how these biomarkers should be implemented and what they truly signify remains a challenge. Our novel Insights Biomarkers bring another layer of information to the table, which we’ve achieved by thoughtfully combining multiple imaging biomarkers and subject-specific characteristics.
Tailored to serve as robust endpoints designed to address your clinical trial challenges and answer your burning questions, our Insights Biomarkers reveal the true impact of your intervention. They’re a more refined approach to understanding metabolic and musculoskeletal diseases.
Muscle Volume Z-Score
A robust, reference-based muscle metric designed to capture changes in muscle mass, unconfounded by body weight.
Body Fat Z-Scores
A reliable set of reference-based metrics designed to uncover fat distribution patterns, and indicate potential targeted treatment effects beyond changes in body weight.
MAsS Biomarkers
Capturing the combined insight of muscle volume z-score & fat infiltration measurements to identify muscle composition phenotypes, enhancing the link to meaningful outcomes far beyond what either measure can achieve alone.
Muscle & Function Composite Scores
Unique combinations of muscle quantification metrics that unlock insights within heterogeneous neuromuscular trial populations that aren’t captured with traditional biomarkers.
AMRA® Muscle & Body Fat Z-Scores
Our Muscle and Body Fat Z-Scores redefine how we understand changes in body composition during weight loss and within highly heterogeneous metabolic diseases—enabling a deeper level of understanding and personalization that traditional metrics or direct imaging biomarkers simply cannot achieve.
When technology meets knowledge
Combining our standardized, high-precision imaging biomarkers with the knowledge and information generated from large reference populations, the Z-Scores are individualized, working to reveal subject-specific body composition profiles. Designed to be weight-invariant, they move beyond conventional categorizations such as “over-” or “underweight”, providing you with a novel methodology to differentiate treatments. Now, you can go beyond weight loss with body composition insights that pinpoint adaptive muscle changes and targeted effects on specific fat depots—delivering a richer, functionally relevant assessment for metabolic and musculoskeletal R&D.
AMRA’s Z-Scores help you pinpoint shifts in fat and muscle distribution and muscle composition; changes which may signal disease improvement or treatment response. Designed to align with your trial goals and built to reveal the true impact of your intervention—where it matters most. These aren’t just new measurements. They’re a new way to do clinical trials.
AMRA® Muscle Assessment Score (MAsS) Biomarkers
The MAsS biomarkers provide objective, standardized, and data-driven measurements to describe muscle composition. These measures capture the combined insight of our Muscle Volume Z-Score (MVZ) and Muscle Fat Infiltration (MFI) measurements to define distinct muscle composition phenotypes, enhancing the link to meaningful outcomes far beyond what either measure can achieve alone.
Comparable muscle health scores
Generated from a rapid, neck-to-knee MRI, MAsS biomarkers compare muscle volume and degree of fat infiltration against matched control groups; information that may be especially helpful in populations where therapeutic treatment effects on muscle health is of concern.
MAsS transforms complex imaging biomarkers into meaningful insights that can be used to identify muscle composition phenotypes – particularly adverse muscle composition – a phenotype that research has shown to independently predict poor function and all-cause mortality1-4. By going beyond traditional measures of muscle mass with the introduction of MVZ, paired with information that indicates muscle quality with MFI, MAsS biomarkers allow researchers to quantify changes in muscle tissue, providing insights during drug development into disease severity, progression, or treatment response insofar as they manifest within the muscle.
The MAsS biomarkers provide a window into muscle composition that traditional measures alone often miss, generating deep insights within your study populations that help you meet your trial objectives.
AMRA® Muscle & Function Composite Scores
Our Muscle & Function Composite Scores transform neuromuscular clinical trials—adapting to heterogenous onset patterns, and overcoming the hurdles that come with the study of slow, progressive conditions.
Composite scores that capture what matters
Combining measurements from multiple muscles throughout the body, from shoulders and arms to the torso, thighs, and lower legs, each Composite Score is designed to collapse a multitude of information into one single, powerful metric to be used as an endpoint in your trial. Through intentional muscle categorization, they focus on the muscles that matter and reduce measurement variability. That means you can now detect subtle changes in muscle health, and how individuals function, providing your research program with a more descriptive and functionally-relevant assessment of the musculoskeletal system.
AMRA’s Composite Scores help you monitor and anticipate changes in muscle status – which may allow researchers to assess disease severity, improvement, or treatment response during drug development trials. Purpose-built to match your trial objectives and uncover the real-world impact of your interventions.
Quality-Control You Can Trust
AMRA’s analyses are 21 CFR Part 11–compliant, ensuring that data integrity and access controls are in line with Good Clinical Practice (GCP). Every scan undergoes dual-operator review to verify image quality and segmentation accuracy, followed by aggregated, study-level quality control to ensure consistency across your dataset—reinforced by a feedback loop to research teams that helps sustain the high standards you expect. This multi-tiered approach ensures the reliability of study-wide findings, and that both the analysis and your measurements are safeguarded.
Contact us for more information
- Linge J, Heymsfield SB, Dahlqvist Leinhard O. On the Definition of Sarcopenia in the Presence of Aging and Obesity-Initial Results from UK Biobank. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2020 Jun 18;75(7):1309-1316. https://doi.org/10.1093/gerona/glz229
- Linge J, Petersson M, Forsgren MF, Sanyal AJ, Dahlqvist Leinhard O. Adverse muscle composition predicts all-cause mortality in the UK Biobank imaging study. J Cachexia Sarcopenia Muscle. 2021 Dec;12(6):1513-1526. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcsm.12834
- Linge J, Nasr P, Sanyal AJ, Dahlqvist Leinhard O, Ekstedt M. Adverse muscle composition is a significant risk factor for all-cause mortality in NAFLD. JHEP Rep. 2022 Dec 24;5(3):100663. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhepr.2022.100663
- Linge J, Petersson M, Coen PM, Cawthon P, Dahlqvist Leinhard O. Associations of muscle composition my magnetic resonance imaging with strength, power, and physical performance in older adults in the SOMMA study. J Frailty Aging 2024;13(S1):S2-S42. https://doi.org/10.14283/jfa.2024.20.