Why Better Data Is the Key to Faster Alzheimer's Breakthroughs, with Dr. Greg Moore of Gates Ventures

0:00So we're in incredible time. AI and biology are at this moment changing what may be possible for us. And we can turn that momentum, I believe, and my colleagues believe into meaningful progress for people with or at risk for Alzheimer's disease and related dementias. And data and how we work together is key to making that happen.

0:29Dr. Greg Moore, I appreciate you joining me here on Startup Health. Welcome to the show. Thank you, Logan. Look forward to talking to you. It's very exciting to be having this conversation ahead of an event that we're collaborating on in a way. We're looking ahead towards the Alzheimer's Insights Summit, which will be attached to CTED, but you have been working in the world of Alzheimer's data and Alzheimer's research in addition to your work there in Hershey. So start by giving us a little bit of a clinical background, kind of how did you come to Alzheimer's and Alzheimer's data? Sure. So, you know, my background is as an engineer and a neuroradiologist and neuroscientist.

1:09And the first half of my career was actually, you know, in doing academic research and clinical care with patients with brain illness, including Alzheimer's disease. Went really deep, publishing a lot of papers and writing a lot of NIH grants in Alzheimer's research. The engineer of my life got me into neuroinformatics, then data science, and eventually into AI. So went on a journey from medicine and research into tech, and that brought me to Google, then Microsoft, and eventually my current role at Gates Ventures and the Alzheimer's Disease Data Initiative to explore how we can work together better to address, I think, is one of the challenges or opportunities of our time in terms of medicine to address a complex disease with complex biology.

1:52And data is key here for us as researchers, biologists, physicians, families to make a difference here. So on one end, engineer and you said neuroradiologist. On the other, senior advisor to Gates Ventures on their Alzheimer's disease data initiative. So I want to kind of talk micro and macro. What opportunities, what more specific opportunities did you see by moving into this strategy realm at the data sharing realm versus, you know, you're a physician, you're caring for patients one at a time, you're doing a lot of good in the world. What greater value did you see at this data initiative level?

2:32Yeah, we're in incredible time. AI and biology are at this moment changing what may be possible for us. And we can turn that momentum, I believe, and my colleagues believe into meaningful progress for people with or at risk for Alzheimer's disease and related dementias. And data and how we work together is key to making that happen. So this is a, you know, I've been working all of my tech career on how to get healthcare and related life sciences data to flow, you know, so we could make progress and leaning in on something I'm passionate about, brain health, just core to who I was and am as a researcher and physician to address, again, this incredibly challenging and complex problem is I couldn't say no to that opportunity to lean in and make this happen.

3:16And I believe radically, we have the opportunity to radically accelerate progress in this field. Educate us on what are the primary initiatives right now within the Gates' Alzheimer's Disease Data Initiative? What are you actually working on? What does it mean day to day? Yeah, so, you know, the Alzheimer's Disease Data Initiative is really infrastructure that makes AI discovery possible. So for Alzheimer's and related dementias, AI tools are only as useful as the harmonizing accessible data behind them. And so our goal is to make that real and reality. Our commitment is not only support data and access to data sets, but also the supporting AI tool development and platforms to help researchers use them together in a collaborative community.

4:02And we've made meaningful progress there. We have 380 of the most meaningful and largest data sets available for neurodegenerative disease, including Alzheimer's disease in the field, on a platform called AD Workbench. We have over 15 ,000 brain researchers engaged on using this platform from over 100 and, I think, 129, 130 countries, I think, to the latest data. Quick question. We work with a lot of folks in this field. Maybe they're plugged into AD Workbench. Maybe they're not. Are there ways for new companies to get plugged in or new researchers? How do they access? You can simply go to the Alzheimer's disease data initiative website and sign up to be a user on AD Workbench and you can get provisioned to actually today.

4:43And so please, for anyone listening to our startup health podcast today, we'd be thrilled to add them to a growing community and welcome that. I'll say there's significant resources there in terms of data. There's not only a platform, there's tools, there's compute, and this is all free. So you can access this. Talk to me about your view and your optimism about what AI can do in terms of leveraging this body of data. And I want to ask that question alongside the fatigue that people have had about Alzheimer's innovation and people thought maybe we would be further along or, you know, hey, we haven't gotten the cure we've been looking for.

5:20On one hand, I hear from the industry a lot of optimism and excitement, what AI can do. On the other hand, people with family members with Alzheimer's feeling like, hey, nothing's really changed that much. So your thoughts? So one, I'll say that in having been both a researcher and had the privilege of being at large tech companies looking at data, we're at an amazing time. The power of compute has finally caught up to be relevant to the complexity of biology. And that's only happened in the last 18 months. And AlphaFold won a Nobel Prize. It was actually an early demonstration that something in biology was, you know, biologists say that's probably pretty primitive, but it won a Nobel Prize.

6:01That was just a symbol that we've reached an inflection point. Computes got a powerful enough to be relevant to biology. And then we've had really significant advancements in the science. So the science has never been more compelling. And that's given us a couple of things just in this past year. It's given us blood-based biomarkers that can determine if you're being affected by Alzheimer's disease many years, even perhaps a decade or more before you have onset of symptoms. So we have blood-based biomarkers for the first time. And we have recently approved in the past year two disease-modifying treatments and 30 more in phase three clinical trials coming forward.

6:37So tremendous optimism, not only that we have something, biomarkers, disease-modifying treatments, many more in the pipeline. So the science has never been more compelling. Then finally, we have to the AI topic, we have the best tools that we've never had access before in terms of AI. For a disease as complex as Alzheimer's, no individual scientist or lab can solve the issue or synthesize everything that this field is producing alone right now. It's staggering. agentic AI systems can help bridge that gap by acting on extra collaborator or collaborators in your lab, extra scientists in your lab, handling the really incredible time-consuming tasks like data harmonization, assisting with hypothesis generation, or even experimental design.

7:20So I see optimism for families, biomarkers, disease management, more to come. And I see optimism in the scientific community. Science has never been more compelling. We have the best tools we've ever had, and they're only going to get better. So I'm an incredible optimism. I'm happy to hear it from someone like you who knows what you're talking about. Obviously, part of the reason why we have this conversation is we're in the lead up to the Alzheimer's Insights Summit before CTAD, which our organizations will be partnering on. Why is it important right now to convene people in real life? Hey, this all could have been an email, right?

7:51Or we could have just worked on it and clawed co-work, but we're bringing people together in a place to talk. Why is that important right now? Yeah, so this all started a little bit over a year ago. So we brought the leading scientists together and said, how could AI, given everything that has told you about has happened, really radically accelerate the pace of research to deliver much-needed treatments for patients and their families and caregivers? We published that in Nature Medicine. And then out of that, we launched an AI prize. And at the last summit in Copenhagen this past year, we announced the award winners for that AI prize there.

8:26And we were only going to give one $1 million prize, but things were so compelling that we ended up giving two$1 million prizes and a promise to support the amazing work of 10 other semifinalists that we wanted to give prizes to all of that. So incredible response to that prize, 180 applications over 30 countries, and this compelling group. The winners were BiomniAD, which is an AD dedicated co-scientist, and another company called Prima Mente, a virtual wet lab to accelerate discovery. Going forward, 10 others coming together. And we're excited at CTAD to make some special announcements and bringing this group together.

9:04And I can't wait to talk about that. Do you think there's anything unique about bringing people together right now in real life, talking about these AI initiatives that brings the humanness of this process to the fore? Yeah, I think bringing together people who are inclined to move fast with a sense of urgency this disease requires creates a catalytic environment for progress. It's interesting, our winners were from adjacent fields. So these weren't only coming from a basic science lab or from a clinical lab, but they're coming from tech and in data and even mathematics as we go forward. And my experience bringing people from adjacent fields together that look at an opportunity problem solved differently creates new collaborations, but actually looking at ideas a little bit differently.

9:50And again, the environment, I think, brings a sense of urgency that I think is needed. A sense of urgency and a sense of serendipity. It might not be the people that you thought were going to be on that Zoom call, that someone who ends up in the room for other reasons, and it ends up being the conversation you needed to have. That's right. And I think this builds on this continuing momentum, not only in the science and where the technology is, but also how we change the way we work together. And if we can change the way we work together to share data and insights, all for one of the most compelling, challenging problems of our time, I think, what would I rather be doing?

10:22This is a pretty amazing opportunity, I think, for them who we're bringing together and I feel privileged and blessed to be able to participate in it. Last sort of lightning round question here. A lot of the people who listen to our podcast and on our YouTube channel are early stage founders, many of whom really care about longevity and age tech and even Alzheimer's specifically. What would be a word of wisdom and guidance that you might give them about how to innovate today, knowing what you know about what data exists and what organizations like Gates Ventures are doing. Let's assume this is a startup with two or three people.

10:57They've got a great idea, but maybe they're not plugged into a broader ecosystem. Yeah. So first thing, I'll put a personal plug. Go to the Alzheimer's Disease Data Initiative website and sign up for AD Workbench. It can be provisioned today, have access to a significant amount of data as well as a community, as well as tools. And this is all free to use. So join this community. And I think you'll see this community. We welcome your ideas and also help. Not only you can help catalyze us, but we can also bring you some resources in the community to plug you in and engage as we go forward. So participate is my recommendation.

11:32And we'll make sure that folks know how to find that link through our community and through the description for this show. Dr. Moore, I appreciate you taking a few minutes with me You've got a busy schedule. You've got people to help. And we're looking forward to what you're building there, both with the data initiative, but also with the Insight Summit there at CTAD. So excited for what's to come in the next couple of months. Thanks so much, Logan. I look forward to seeing you in Boston and your team. All right. Take care. Be well. Bye-bye. Bye.