Seattle, WA — Artificial intelligence (AI) is having a major impact on Alzheimer’s research and could dramatically accelerate progress against the disease, from early diagnosis to drug discovery, according to a special issue of the Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer's Disease (JPAD) released today.
This special collection, which was commissioned by Gates Ventures and the Alzheimer's Disease Data Initiative (AD Data Initiative), features two opening editorials and nine in-depth essays from leading scientists across eight countries who examine how AI tools are already changing Alzheimer’s research—and how they could revolutionize it in the near future.
Among the advances and insights discussed in this special issue:
- By detecting subtle patterns that have eluded conventional analyses, AI tools are already helping to find new ways of diagnosing Alzheimer’s earlier on, from new imaging and fluid biomarkers to enhanced, AI-enabled speech analysis.
- AI is helping researchers synthesize new and evolving models of Alzheimer’s pathology from massive, complex, and often noisy data, accelerating drug discovery and vastly expanding human understanding of the disease’s progression.
- Advanced machine learning and the use of “digital twin” models can greatly improve how clinical trials for Alzheimer’s are conducted, making trials shorter, more efficient in both enrollment and experimentation, and more patient centered.
“Across many different fields of inquiry, AI tools represent the cutting edge of science and technology,” said Dr. Niranjan Bose, Managing Director for Health & Life Sciences at Gates Ventures and Interim Executive Director of the AD Data Initiative. “We commissioned this special issue of JPAD because we believe that, when top dementia researchers around the world take advantage of new AI-based technologies, they will help rein in the growing crisis represented by this terrible disease.”
The special issue follows a call-to-action published in Nature Medicine in April 2025 and complements other recent AI initiatives from Gates Ventures and the AD Data Initiative:
- In August, the AD Data Initiative launched a $1 million Alzheimer’s Insights AI Prize to solicit proposals on using agentic AI – tools that that can plan, reason and act autonomously – to accelerate the pace, scale and reach of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias research. Prize semi-finalists will be presenting their ideas at the upcoming Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease (CTAD) Conference in San Diego on December 5.
- Earlier this year, the AD Data Initiative announced a second cohort of William H. Gates Senior Fellows, who are focused on exploring innovative ways to apply AI to Alzheimer’s research areas like early detection, neuroimaging, and disease progression.
“This special JPAD issue on AI opens an essential dialogue within the Alzheimer’s research community on the transformative potential of artificial intelligence,” said Prof. Lefkos Middleton, Editor-in-Chief of the issue, of Imperial College London, UK. “It offers an initial perspective on how emerging AI tools can enhance performance and outcomes across the entire spectrum of Alzheimer’s research—from early discovery and disease understanding to every stage of clinical development.”
His fellow Editor-in-Chief, Prof. Sandrine Andrieu of IHU HealthAge in Toulouse, France, added: “AI will accelerate Alzheimer’s drug development and help advance healthy longevity.”
The commentaries in the issue also underscore that successfully using AI to accelerate Alzheimer’s research depends on data-sharing frameworks that are both privacy-preserving and globally inclusive – enabling diverse datasets and international collaboration that will help ensure AI tools serve everyone. The AD Data Initiative offers one such platform for responsible, secure data sharing through its AD Workbench.
“As this special issue makes clear, AI is poised to be transformative for the millions of people affected by Alzheimer’s disease. But that promise comes with responsibility: we must ensure these tools are rigorously validated, grounded in strong ethics, and equitably deployed,” said Dr. Gregory J. Moore, Senior Advisor at Gates Ventures and the Alzheimer’s Disease Data Initiative, and first author of one of the issue’s overview editorials. “By moving forward with shared purpose and deliberate action, we will fully unlock AI’s potential and radically accelerate progress at every stage of Alzheimer’s discovery, development, and care.”
A full table of contents for the JPAD collection can be found below.
Table of Contents: Special Collection: Leveraging Advances in Artificial Intelligence to Accelerate Alzheimer’s Disease Research
Editorials
- What Can Artificial Intelligence Bring to Alzheimer’s Disease Clinical Trials? A First Perspective – Lefkos Middleton, Sandrine Andrieu (United Kingdom, France)
- Artificial Intelligence and the Acceleration of Alzheimer’s Research: From Promise to Practice – Gregory J. Moore, Niranjan Bose, Husseini K. Manji, Eric M. Reiman, Reisa Sperling (USA, United Kingdom)
Data Sharing, Research, and Models
- A Benchmark of Text Embedding Models for Semantic Harmonization of Alzheimer’s Disease Cohorts – Tim Adams et al. (Germany)
- Towards an AI Biomedical Scientist: Accelerating Discoveries in Neurodegenerative Disease – Kaleigh F. Roberts et al. (USA, United Kingdom)
- AI Models, Bias, and Data Sharing Efforts to Tackle Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias – Vijaya B. Kolachalama, Vijay Sureshkumar, Rhoda Au (USA)
- Mining the Gaps: Deciphering Alzheimer’s Biology through AI-Driven Reconciliation – Cory Funk et al. (USA)
Diagnostics
- Multi-modal Data Analysis for Early Detection of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias – Liming Wang et al. (USA)
- Reinventing “N” in the A/T/N Framework: The Case for Digital – Rhoda Au et al. (USA, Sweden, United Kingdom, Norway, China)
Upstream Drug Discovery
- The Evolution of Alzheimer’s Target Identification: Towards a Fusion of Artificial and Cellular Intelligence – Gayle Wittenberg et al. (USA, Belgium, United Kingdom)
Clinical Trials
- Solving the Goldilocks Problem in Dementia Clinical Trials with Multimodal AI –g Andrew E. Welchman, Zoe Kourtzi (United Kingdom)
- AI-augmented Frameworks for Enhancing Alzheimer’s Disease Clinical Trials: A Memory Clinic Perspective – Francesco K. Yigamawano et al. (USA)
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About Gates Ventures: The executive office of Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, Gates Ventures works to catalyze innovations that solve global problems, including Alzheimer’s Disease, by incubating products, advocating for important causes, engaging with global organizations, and managing venture investments.
About the Alzheimer’s Disease Data Initiative: Led by a global coalition of academic, industry, government and nonprofit partners, the Alzheimer’s Disease Data Initiative coalition is on a mission to fundamentally transform Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias research by empowering researchers with secure data sharing and analytics tools, fostering research collaboration, enabling seamless access to multiple data sharing platforms, and unlocking important Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias datasets.
The Initiative’s flagship product offering is the AD Workbench, which enables permissioned users to find, combine, and analyze data in secure cloud-based workspaces.
About the Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease: The Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease publishes reviews, original research articles, and short reports to improve knowledge in the field of Alzheimer’s prevention including: neurosciences, biomarkers, imaging, epidemiology, public health, physical cognitive exercise, nutrition, risk and protective factors, drug development, trials design, and health economic outcomes.