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

Greg Moore (0:00)

So, 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.

Logan Plaster (0:29)

Dr. Greg Moore, I appreciate you joining me here on StartUp Health. Welcome to the show.

Greg Moore (0:34)

Thank you, Logan. Look forward to talking to you.

Logan Plaster (0:37)

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 Insight Summit, which will be attached to CTAD. 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?

Greg Moore (1:03)

Sure. So my background is as an engineer and a neuroradiologist and neuroscientist. And the first half of my career was actually in doing academic research in 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 in my life got me into neuroinformatics and 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 in 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 a complex biology. And data is key here for us as researchers, biologists, physicians, families to make a difference here.

Logan Plaster (2:00)

So on one end, engineer and you said, neuro-radiologist 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'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?

Greg Moore (2:32)

Yeah, 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. And I believe radically, we have the opportunity to radically accelerate progress in this field.

Logan Plaster (3:21)

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?

Greg Moore (3:31)

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 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 help researchers use them together in a collaborative community.

And 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 129, 130 countries, I think, the latest data. So quick question.

Logan Plaster (4:25)

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 it?

Greg Moore (4:35)

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 actually today. And 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.