AD Data Initiative | A Golden Age of Research | Building Momentum Towards New Discoveries

The Alzheimer's Disease Data Initiative (ADDI)

A note from Niranjan Bose, Executive Director of AD Data Initiative

“We are entering a golden age of Alzheimer's research. Our knowledge of how the human brain works is growing at a tremendous rate, and it’s revolutionizing how scientists approach saving lives.”

Bill Gates wrote that this summer. Here at the Alzheimer’s Disease Data Initiative, we couldn’t agree more. Ahead of World Alzheimer’s Day on Sep 21, we are very excited about the progress we’re seeing and reaffirmed in our mission to keep the momentum going.

Both the rapid advances in our field and the remarkable power of scientific collaboration were on full display at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC) in London this past July. There, we met scientists from around the world whose research is being empowered by the tools and data on AD Workbench. We also heard about thrilling new discoveries, like new evidence that pTau-217 blood tests can predict Alzheimer’s two-to-ten years before symptoms are present, that have come about specifically because of the sort of data sharing and collaborative spirit that our coalition works to engender.

Our team is enormously heartened by the conversations we had and progress we saw at AAIC, and we’re building on them by bringing more new opportunities to our community.

We’ve launched the Alzheimer’s Trials Data Discovery Challenge, featuring a first-of-its kind harmonized dataset of placebo-arm data from 11 different Alzheimer’s clinical trials, to encourage researchers to answer questions about disease progression, subtypes, and sex and gender differences.

We are also continuing to expand the suite of tools available on AD Workbench and will soon be rolling out more AI-enabled apps that can facilitate searches, smooth workflows, solve logistical problems, and improve the overall experience on the platform. Many of these additions reflect the feedback we received from Workbench users at AAIC.

And we’re following through on our commitment to all the finalists of the Alzheimer’s Insights AI Prize to build community of practice to advance their AI solutions, and dramatically speed up the pace of discovery.

With that in mind, and in the spirit of continuing to expand the circle of collaboration that is driving Alzheimer’s research forward, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us if you have ideas on how to further improve the services we’re offering, or thoughts on more scientific collaborations we can help to make real. And thanks for all you’re doing to keep us moving forward together. I can’t wait to hear about what you’re working on.

Niranjan Bose

Interim Executive Director

Alzheimer's Disease Data Initiative

P.S. If you know someone who would like to learn more about our work, please share this newsletter, and invite them to visit our website.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Alzheimer’s Trials Data Discovery Challenge Now Open: In partnership with Vivli and supported by Alzheimer's Research UK, we launched a data challenge designed to unlock new discoveries from the Integrated Alzheimer’s Disease Clinical Trial Dataset – a fully harmonized dataset featuring decades of placebo-arm data from 5 major pharmaceutical companies (AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly and Company, Johnson & Johnson, Roche, and Takeda) and 11 drug trials. This harmonized dataset, available exclusively for challenge participants on Vivli’s secure, cloud-based research environment, gives researchers the statistical power to ask entirely new questions about disease subtypes, progression, and the role of sex in Alzheimer's.

Teams participating in the challenge are competing for $75,000 in prizes, the opportunity to publish findings in a high-impact journal, and an opportunity to present at a major AD conference. We are now reviewing the 118 submitted letters of intent from 39 countries around the world. More to come soon!

Expanding The NULISA NeuroData Commons with Alamar Biosciences: We have expanded a partnership with Alamar Biosciences, supported by Gates Ventures, to build out one of the largest-ever blood-based proteomics resources for neurodegenerative disease research. The resulting dataset, which will be made available to the global research community via AD Workbench, will include more than 140,000+ samples profiled by NULISAseq™ Neuro 220 panel. It will also be linked to rich clinical and longitudinal data, creating a powerful resource for biomarker discovery and AI-driven research.

ADWB Power Users Program Launched: Our new AD Workbench Power User Program recognizes researchers who are making the most of the platform to advance Alzheimer’s and related dementia research. Power Users are helping shape the future of the AD Workbench community and gain exclusive opportunities for collaboration, early access, and additional compute. Visit our website to sign up for AD Workbench and learn more.

AAIC 2026 In Review: At the 2026 Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in London in July, our team connected with many of our partners, met AD Workbench Power Users from all over the world, learned from the best minds in our field, and heard about some thrilling new discoveries spurred by data sharing (see the “Partner Spotlight” below).

We were especially proud to bring together researchers, partners, and collaborators for a reception announcing the five teams chosen to participate in the Dementia Frontiers Fund, a joint research endeavor with Alzheimer’s Research UK, Gates Ventures, the Robertson Foundation, and additional support from the Q Charitable Trust.

We also got the chance to preview some of the new AI-enablement features coming to AD Workbench in the near future and hosted a working session for users new and old to explore our one-of-a-kind research environment for Alzheimer’s and dementia research. Thanks again to everyone who joined us in London!

New AI-Features coming to AD Workbench: As AAIC 2026 attendees got to see firsthand, we are in the midst of adding several new AI-enabled features to expand AD Workbench’s capabilities going forward. They include:

“Addie,” the virtual tour guide for the AD Data Initiative. Ask Addie any question about the initiative or our tools, and it will share quick responses sourced straight from our website.

GRIP Assist: Stuck on how to request data or use a workspace? Get immediate step-by-step guidance or submit a support ticket with an in-platform chat support agent, powered by GRIP.

SmartAssist - Natural Language Processing (NLP)-enabled search: Tell our data catalog what you want to find in simple, plain language instead of using manual filtering.

For more information about upcoming AI-enabled apps coming to AD Workbench, check out the AI roadmap recently posted on LinkedIn by Ramasubramanian Ramani, our Chief Product and Technology Officer.

AI for AD Incubators and Collaboratories: Building on the incredible ideas seen in last fall’s Alzheimer’s Insights AI Prize, we want more Alzheimer’s scientists to be able to take advantage of smart, tailored, and AI-powered solutions to accelerate their research. Stay tuned for an announcement on this closer to CTAD 2026.

GNPC Data Challenge Winners Announced: In June, we announced the ten winners of our GNPC data challenge, which encouraged ADRD researchers from around the world to delve deeper into the world’s largest proteomics dataset for neurodegenerative diseases.

The first and second place winners for each priority research question uncovered fascinating new insights, including individual Alzheimer’s biomarkers mapped to specific cell types, proteomic signatures that help identify targets to prevent or delay Alzheimer’s in people at higher genetic risk, and new models that help improve the prediction of cognitive decline. Thanks to everyone who took part in this challenge.

PARTNER SPOTLIGHT: PROF. RACHEL BUCKLEY

Professor Rachel Buckley co-leads the new Sex & Gender in Neurodegeneration (S|GN) Consortium, a driver project of the AD Data Initiative which is bringing together partners from around the world to build a harmonized dataset to better understand how dementia differs in women and men.

As an Associate Professor at Mass General Research Institute and Harvard Medical School, she leads research on preclinical Alzheimer’s and sex and gender differences. Her team recently published new research in that found blood tests measuring the protein p-tau 217 can predict Alzheimer’s risk two to ten years before symptoms even begin.

Learn more about her research focus, and what excites her in the space:

What drew you to study preclinical Alzheimer’s and sex & gender differences?

I was initially drawn to preclinical Alzheimer’s disease because it became clear that the biology of the disease begins many years before someone develops symptoms. My interest in sex and gender differences grew from the skepticism I was seeing around me in the biomarker field about whether sex differences truly existed or whether women had a higher prevalence rate purely due to longevity.

Read more of Rachel’s Q&A here.

Why did you join the S|GN Consortium? What excites you about its approach, and what kinds of questions could it help answer?

I joined S|GN because I strongly believe that we need to continue to investigate sex and gender in AD in a systematic, rigorous and data-harmonized way. We have many intriguing findings, but the evidence is often fragmented across individual cohorts...and individual studies are rarely large enough to tackle these questions alone.

What excites me about S|GN is the opportunity to harmonize large global datasets and bring together researchers with very different expertise to move toward understanding their mechanisms. This could allow us to ask much more ambitious questions.

Read more of Rachel’s Q&A here.

How does data sharing advance your research?

Data sharing has been fundamental to my research model and how I’ve been trained. Our recent JAMA study is a good example: by harmonizing data from six longitudinal cohorts, we were able to study nearly 2,700 cognitively unimpaired older adults and ask how blood p-tau217 relates to the absolute risk of developing cognitive impairment over time. No single cohort could answer that question alone.

Read more of Rachel’s Q&A here.

What gives you hope in the field?

The field is moving so quickly!...I’m also encouraged that questions that were historically overlooked, including women’s brain health, are becoming central scientific questions.

The combination of earlier detection, better treatments, and much larger collaborative science gives us a genuine opportunity to change what an Alzheimer’s diagnosis means for the next generation.

Read more of Rachel’s Q&A here.

WHAT WE'RE READING

“Structured changes to everyday habits can improve memory”: Also presented at AAIC 2026, the LatAm-FINGERS team recently found that a healthy lifestyle program built on the U.S. POINTER Study improved cognitive outcomes for older adults across 11 countries in Latin America, providing strong evidence this approach can be adapted across cultures, languages and health systems.

“Four decades of Alzheimer's disease discoveries, data, and research": What does 40 years of dementia research collaboration tell us? No single lab, institution, or dataset will solve Alzheimer’s alone. From a Special Issue of Alzheimer’s & Dementia celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Alzheimer's Disease Research Centers (ADRC), this piece by Nina Silverberg and others charts the past, present, and future of a collaborative effort that has fundamentally shaped how we understand dementia.

“We are entering a Golden Age of Alzheimer’s research”: In June, Bill Gates wrote a post on his Gates Notes site celebrating the rapid advances in Alzheimer’s discoveries. “One of the big focuses of my Alzheimer’s work has been getting more data into their hands,” writes Gates. “I worked with a coalition of partners to create the Alzheimer's Disease Data Initiative, which now has more than 10,000 users from over 125 countries.”

"Accelerating Alzheimer's Research Through Data and AI in 2026": Rama Ramani, CPTO of the AD Data Initiative, wrote an article on LinkedIn in July summarizing the values guiding our AI strategy, the various types of users we work to accommodate on AD Workbench, and the road ahead.

NEW DATASETS NOW ACCESSIBLE VIA AD WORKBENCH

There are now 372 datasets available on AD Workbench, all findable and accessible through the AD Discovery Portal. New datasets include:

American Heart Association Get With The Guidelines datasets: AHA’s Get With The Guidelines data from participating hospitals tracks occurrences such as atrial fibrillations, strokes, and heart failures, and allows healthcare researchers to examine trends and bring evidence-based guidance to bear across the industry.

EPND Microbiome Study: Identification of the taxonomic and functional profile of the microbiome and the microbial gene biomarkers from the gut microbiome of AD and PD. Data was collected as part of an EPND case study, including a mixed cohort of AD, PD, and controls recruited from 3 European studies: Amsterdam University Medical Center (ADC), University of Geneva (UNIGE), and University of Luxembourg (UNILU).

ALFA+ Study Dataset: This dataset originates from ALFA+, a longitudinal study nested within the ALFA research platform at the Barcelonaβeta Brain Research Center, designed to study preclinical Alzheimer’s disease in 419 cognitively unimpaired adults. ALFA+ data includes visit information, sociodemographic variables, clinical diagnosis, medical history, medication, vital signs and anthropometrics, cognitive and behavioral measures, APOE genotype, neuroimaging summary measures, and cerebrospinal fluid biomarker status.