In this episode, Professor Louise Serpell brings together Dr Niranjan Bose from the Alzheimer's Disease Data Initiative, Jonathan Hoover from the AI company Prima Mente, and Dr Kexin Huang from Stanford University and Biomni AD. They discuss the Alzheimer’s Insights AI Prize and what agentic AI could mean for the future of dementia research.
We hear about the Alzheimer’s Disease Data Initiative and AD Workbench, and their role in making research data more accessible, usable and secure. The conversation also looks at how the Alzheimer’s Insights AI Prize could help researchers make better use of that data, turning complex resources into practical tools for discovery.
Kexin introduces Biomni AD, an AI research assistant designed to help scientists develop questions, bring data together and move from ideas to results more efficiently. Jonathan introduces Parthenon and Athena, a virtual wet lab system that helps researchers model cell states, test perturbations and plan experiments.
Together, the guests consider how AI can support researchers without replacing human judgement, and why confidence in using these tools is likely to become an important skill for dementia researchers.
Essential Links:
In this episode:
- AI can support researchers by helping with data, workflows and experimental planning, but it still needs human judgement, review and validation.
- AD Workbench from Alzheimer's Disease Data Initiative is helping make dementia research data more accessible, usable and secure, giving researchers better ways to work across complex datasets.
- Agentic AI could help researchers move more quickly from a research question to an analysis plan, useful evidence or a possible experiment.
- Biomni AD, Parthenon and Athena show how AI tools are becoming more specialised, from research assistants to virtual wet lab systems.
- AI literacy is likely to become an important skill for dementia researchers, including those without coding or data science backgrounds.
A transcript of this show, links and show notes and profile on all our guests are available on our website at https://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk.
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