|
|
|
|
A note from Niranjan Bose, Executive Director of AD Data Initiative
|
2025 has been an especially rewarding year for all of us in the AD Data Initiative coalition.
When we launched in 2020, our primary goal was to foster more data sharing, get more expert eyes on more impactful research, and un-silo the culture of Alzheimer's research to rapidly accelerate the pace of discovery in our field.
Five years later, we are in a world transformed. As our friends at the UK Dementia Research Institute put it, "for the first time since the disease was identified in 1906, we [now] have treatments that can slow cognitive decline. Combined with breakthrough blood-based biomarkers, we're witnessing the beginning of a new era in diagnosis, treatment, and prevention." Or, in the words of one of our founders, Bill Gates, "I'm blown away by how much progress we've made... For decades, an Alzheimer's diagnosis was a death sentence. That’s finally starting to change."
The culture of our field is changing, too. I was just at the 18th Clinical Trials on Alzheimer's Disease (CTAD) conference in San Diego and the optimism and collaborative spirit there was palpable. From our co-reception with the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation, to the panels and workshops like the Sex & Gender Consortium Workshop convened by our staff, to choosing the five Alzheimer’s Insights AI Prize finalists, everyone at CTAD was energized about working together and looking forward to new discoveries. I was especially excited about the Global Neurodegeneration Proteomics Consortium's announcement of the GNPC Version Multi-Platform, a major expansion of their V1 Harmonized Dataset that will add over 20,000 new bio-sample analyses to the V1 data.
Our collaborative tools have advanced by leaps and bounds as well. When I wrote to you back in March, we were proud to be passing the 100-dataset mark in AD Workbench. Now, thanks in no small part to our nine interoperability partners, there are more than 300 datasets available to discover and analyze through AD Workbench. A special thanks to our friends at Sage Bionetworks, who host the AD Knowledge Portal and have enabled the discovery and permissioned analysis of over 150 NIA-funded Alzheimer's and dementia datasets via AD Workbench.
We cannot wait to see what 2026 brings in terms of new advances against Alzheimer’s. I am especially intrigued to see how AI tools can help researchers accelerate discoveries. If we can keep the pace we've set over the first five years of the AD Data Initiative, the future is looking very bright indeed. Thanks to all of you for joining us on this journey of discovery.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Happy Holidays,
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 subscribe here.
|
|
|
|
|
|
ANNOUNCEMENTS
|
GNPC Data Challenge Update: There is still time to get involved in our GNPC Data Challenge: submissions are due January 15, 2026. So far, 25 submissions are underway from interested researchers all around the world, including from Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, India, Italy, Nigeria, Spain, Switzerland, the UAE, the UK, and the United States. We’ve seen nearly 100 data access requests for the datasets listed in the GNPC Data Challenge since we launched on October 15.
Also, based on your submissions, we’ve added an additional Priority Research Question to the GNPC Data Challenge: How do the cellular origins and biological pathways of plasma proteins reflect and influence Alzheimer’s disease processes, and what insights could this provide for developing diagnostic or therapeutic strategies?
Thanks to those who helped identify this new question and everyone taking part in this data challenge involving the world’s largest proteomics dataset for neurodegenerative diseases. In case you missed our first GNPC Data Challenge announcement and want to get involved, more details (and the rest of the research priority questions) are available here.
Alzheimer's Insights AI Prize Finalist Announcement: Earlier this month at the Alzheimer's Insights Summit 2 in San Diego, five finalist teams were selected to advnce to the final round of the $1 million Alzheimer’s Insights first prize. The final presentations will take place on the sidelines of AD/PD in Copenhagen next March and teams will compete for the agentic AI solution that can generate the most powerful leap in the pace, scale, and reach of ADRD research. Our five finalist teams are Aletheia, Biomni-AD, corteX, Fingerprint, and Prima Mente – click here for more information on their respective submissions.
In addition, and because both our team and our AI Prize judges were impressed by the rigor and quality of all the competition, collaboratories are being established with all ten semi-finalist teams who presented at at the AlzInsights Summit 2, in the hopes that their work can help augment AD Workbench and further accelerate research and discovery in the Alzheimer’s space.
|
|
Greg Moore and Niranjan Bose with the Alzheimer's Insights AI Prize finalist teams.
|
JPAD Special Issue on AI: This month, the Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease (JPAD) released a special issue, commissioned by the AD Data Initiative and Gates Ventures, on the role of AI in Alzheimer’s research. It includes nine essays from leading scientists across eight countries on how AI is advancing early diagnosis, drug discovery, and clinical trial design. You can read it for free here.
|
New Sex and Gender Differences in ADRD Consortium: Announced as part of the important discussion on this topic at CTAD 2025, a new consortium has been launched to focus on sex and gender-based differences in ADRD, with the promise of delivering data and insights to help tease apart the biology underpinning this urgent topic. The consortium will evaluate currently available ADRD data to identify the drivers and risk factors behind the disproportionately high incidence of AD among women and work to determine where new types of data must be collected.
This consortium will be co-led by Professor Rachel Buckley of Mass General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Professor Timothy Hohman of Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Professor Miia Kivipelto of the Karolinska Institutet Center for Alzheimer Research, and Professor Judy Pa of UC San Diego.
|
|
Sex and Gender Differences Workshop at CTAD.
|
New Partnership with the Dementia Frontiers Fund: The AD Data Initiative is proud to serve as a research partner for Alzheimer Research UK’s Dementia Frontiers Fund. This fund, co-launched with Gates Ventures, is an ambitious initiative focused on answering some of the most urgent and complex questions in dementia research: (1) Can we better predict and stage disease progression in dementia? (2) Why are some high-risk populations resilient to dementia? And (3) What are the relative contributions of different brain pathologies to the development of dementia? Research teams from around the world, not just in the UK and United States, are invited to apply for funding.
New Advisory Board Member: We are proud to welcome Akihiko Koyama, PhD, head of Digital Innovation for Eisai Inc., to the AD Data Initiative’s Advisory Board. Welcome!
Bill Gates on Alzheimer’s with CBS Sunday Morning: In November, Bill Gates, one of the AD Data Initiative’s founders, talked with Dr. Jon LaPook and CBS Sunday Morning about why we’re at a turning point in the fight against Alzheimer’s and the importance of new research approaches and continued investments, including how AI could transform the pace of Alzheimer’s research. You can watch the full interview below.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
NEW DATASETS NOW ACCESSIBLE VIA AD WORKBENCH
|
|
With the aid of our nine (and counting) interoperability partners, the number of datasets available on AD Workbench surged this quarter to 307, all findable and accessible through the AD Discovery Portal. New datasets include:
Over 150 NIH-funded studies via the AD Knowledge Portal hosted by Sage: Thanks to our partnership with Sage Bionetworks, researchers can now use the AD Discovery Portal and AD Workbench to search, discover, and request access to more than150 NIH-funded studies hosted by Sage’s AD Knowledge Portal. A huge thanks to Sage for this watershed moment in ADRD research collaboration and data sharing.
IHU HealthAge (CHU de Toulouse): This new partnership will enable data from IHU HealthAge’s extensive research activities to be discoverable and requestable via AD Workbench. By enabling permissioned access to IHU HealthAge’s rich research data, the collaboration aims to catalyze novel insights and breakthrough discoveries and accelerate our progress towards new diagnostics, treatments and cures for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.
Brain Cell Type-Specific Enhancer-Promoter Interactome Maps and Disease: To better understand common genetic variation associated with brain diseases, this study defined noncoding regulatory regions for major cell types of the human brain. The findings revise and expand the list of genes likely to be influenced by noncoding variants in AD and suggest the probable cell types in which they function.
|
Holiday Support Note: AD Workbench support will be available at limited capacity Dec 24–Jan 3. Urgent issues affecting platform security and user access will be prioritized; response times for other requests may be delayed.
|
UPCOMING EVENTS: Q1 2026
|
India AI Impact Summit 2026
16-20, February 2026
New Delhi, India
AAIC Neuroscience Next 2026
23-26, February 2026
Hybrid Conference
AD/PD 2026
17-21, March 2026
Copenhagen, Denmark
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
