Reimagining Bone Diagnosis: ALIGNOGRAM Joins Prestigious ANDHealth ACTIVATE Accelerator
Early diagnosis is critical in preventing and managing disease—yet subtle signs are often missed. What if standard X-rays could do more to help? ALIGNOGRAM, a new diagnostic tool developed at Monash University, is aiming to make that possible.
The tool has just been selected for the ANDHealth ACTIVATE program, Victoria’s leading digital health accelerator. This six-month program supports high-potential digital health technologies and is designed to help companies scale through expert guidance and practical support. ALIGNOGRAM’s inclusion marks a significant milestone for the project and highlights the growing potential of digital tools in transforming routine clinical practice.
ALIGNOGRAM is a smart tool which automatically spots and measures abnormal areas on standard X-rays, catching early signs of bone disease that even experienced doctors might overlook. Dr Roger Zebaze, a clinician-scientist working on bone diseases, and Professor Peter Ebeling AO, who leads the Department of Medicine in the School of Clinical Sciences at Monash Health, developed the tool based on their research into disorganised bone tissue, a lesser-recognised factor in bone fragility.
Doctors occasionally miss subtle signs of disease during a simple visual review of an X-ray, which means that early stages of disease sometimes go unnoticed until they become more serious. ALIGNOGRAM helps to solve these problems by providing an automated analysis tool that can work alongside doctors to help them diagnose diseases earlier, and may also improve access to early diagnosis in lower-resource settings.
"ALIGNOGRAM isn't just about technology, it's about equity," Dr Zebaze emphasised. "By unlocking the secrets of unusual patterns in X-rays, we're changing how diseases are diagnosed, making personalised prevention and treatment possible for billions of people who rely on X-rays as their only imaging option."
The ACTIVATE program, delivered by ANDHealth and supported by LaunchVic, provides intensive support to selected Victorian companies developing novel digital and digitally enabled medical technologies. Over the next six months, the ALIGNOGRAM team will improve their business model, plan their regulatory approval strategy, and prepare for hospital testing.
By the end of the program, they aim to be ready for full deployment, including obtaining necessary approvals from health authorities, integrating into hospital systems by mid-2026, and ready to expand to many countries.
"This award will validate our vision in profound ways,” said Dr Zebaze. "By turning this century-old technology into an advanced precision diagnostic platform using the ALIGNOGRAM, we're revolutionising healthcare for billions."
About Monash University
Monash University is Australia’s largest university with more than 80,000 students. In the 60 years since its foundation, it has developed a reputation for world-leading high-impact research, quality teaching, and inspiring innovation.
With four campuses in Australia and a presence in Malaysia, China, India, Indonesia and Italy, it is one of the most internationalised Australian universities.
As a leading international medical research university with the largest medical faculty in Australia and integration with leading Australian teaching hospitals, we consistently rank in the top 50 universities worldwide for clinical, pre-clinical and health sciences.
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