The Consortium for Neurodegenerative Biomedical Research and Artificial Intelligence (C-BRAIN), a global collaboration of academic researchers, pharmaceutical companies, and philanthropic organizations whose founding members include Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, today launched three open source AI tools to accelerate research aimed at developing new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases. The tool, announced at the Alzheimer’s Disease Society International Conference in London, synthesizes the Alzheimer’s disease and neuroscience literature, surfaces insights from unpublished, so-called “dark” or hidden data, and provides peer-reviewed feedback to researchers. WashU Medicine led the creation of a 17-member consortium.
C-BRAIN’s mission is to build “AI biomedical research scientists” in collaboration with human researchers to address the persistent challenge that more than 99% of Alzheimer’s drug candidates fail in clinical trials. Despite decades of research, critical scientific knowledge remains fragmented across millions of published papers, large and complex datasets, and unpublished research results. AI gives scientists the ability to leverage all this information toward shared goals.
A tremendous opportunity has emerged by harnessing the AI revolution and the ability of scientists to generate vast amounts of research results. The brain is extremely complex, but artificial intelligence inspired by the human brain can find relationships in large amounts of data that a single human brain cannot hold. We hope that the discoveries made in the coming years will be breakthroughs that would not be possible without AI. ”
Randall J. Bateman, MD, Charles F. and Joanne Knight, Distinguished Professor of Neurology at WashU Medicine, one of the world’s leading Alzheimer’s disease researchers, and Director and Founder of C-BRAIN
Bateman predicts that C-BRAIN’s AI scientists will accelerate the pace of discovery many times over by increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of Alzheimer’s disease and neurodegeneration research.
Open sourcing an AI-powered toolbox
C-BRAIN’s efforts to date bring three interrelated open source AI tools into the hands of the global research community.
- AI literature and data synthesis: Synthesize the Alzheimer’s disease and neuroscience literature using advanced search techniques to help researchers evaluate hypotheses faster than manual review.
- Dark Data Analyzer: Uncovers insights from unpublished data and negative results provided by academic and pharmaceutical members, helping researchers avoid repeating failed experiments.
- Reviewer 3: A critical reasoning agent who provides scientifically-based, peer-review-style feedback on grant proposals, manuscripts, and experimental designs.
“Developing AI tools that act as black boxes that cannot be interpreted is the opposite of science,” Bateman said. “By providing a completely open system, scientists around the world can look at the code, analyze it, test it, improve it, and collaboratively find where the flaws are. These tools are built for scientists, by scientists, and owned by the scientific community.”
The newly released tool was built in part using resources from the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) Pilot Program, an initiative of the National Science Foundation and Microsoft. They were developed by Dr. Adith Boloor, a staff AI scientist in the WashU Digital Intelligence and Innovation (DI2) Accelerator. Ade Ojewole, Chief Technology Officer, C-BRAIN; Eric Landsness, MD, associate director of C-BRAIN and assistant professor of neurology at WashU Medicine;
cooperation for the common good
The consortium’s federated design gives members complete control over their data. Proprietary, unpublished pharmaceutical data can inform the tool without being published or transferred, and a scientist-involved approach keeps human researchers involved every step of the way. This structure is essential for making AI-driven discoveries that can be verified and replicated by other scientists, Bateman said.
C-BRAIN’s design appeals to members for a variety of reasons. For the consortium’s pharmaceutical partners, this opens up a rare pre-competitive space for companies to sharpen the science ahead of drug development, where companies leverage their expertise to identify suitable biological targets and mechanisms before developing treatments.
“By integrating advanced computational tools, unique datasets, and deep scientific expertise, C-BRAIN is helping us ask better questions and move faster toward answers in the field of neurodegenerative diseases,” said Richard Hargreaves, Ph.D., senior vice president of Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Neuroscience Thematic Research Center, founder and key contributing member of the consortium. “Partnerships like this are central to ensuring we have the right tools in place at Bristol-Myers Squibb as we explore both palliative and disease-modifying approaches, with the ultimate goal of getting medicines to patients faster.”
The consortium’s appeal to philanthropic supporters is its long-term perspective: a set of openly available, nonprofit tools that any approved biomedical researcher can use to advance the field.
“The science of Alzheimer’s disease is at a tipping point, and new advances in AI have unprecedented potential to transform research and accelerate innovation,” said Isabel Coleman, chief executive officer of the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation, a key contributing member of the consortium. “C-BRAIN brings together the cross-disciplinary collaboration necessary to build the foundation for that progress. ADDF is proud to invest in this effort, which has the potential to strengthen scientific rigor, discover new patterns in complex data, accelerate discovery, and advance the field toward a new era of precision medicine.”
Bateman sees these motives as convergent. “Bringing together drug developers, philanthropic and patient advocacy groups, and the researchers and doctors who have been fighting these diseases for decades and providing them with these AI tools is how we can deliver on our promise to patients and the people who care for them.”
All three tools are available free of charge to biomedical researchers working in the field of neurodegeneration and can register for approval by contacting C-BRAIN. A demonstration of the tool’s functionality is also available on the consortium’s website.
Main contributing members of C-BRAIN
- Arts Forum
- AD Data Initiative
- alzheimer’s disease association
- Alzheimer’s Disease Drug Discovery Foundation
- anonymous foundation
- bristol myers squib
- dolby family
- gates ventures
- johnson & johnson
- rainwater charity foundation
- robertson foundation
- sage bionetwork
- sanofi
- 10,000 Brains Project
- wash you medicine
Main members of C-BRAIN
- Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Inc.
- Eisai Co., Ltd.
sauce:
Washington University in St. Louis
