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NIH’s Francis Collins: Big Data Portal for Alzheimer’s Disease to Aid R&D

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Francis Collins
Francis Collins

The Accelerating Medicines Partnership between the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Food and Drug Administration and private-sector partners has launched a big data portal for the sharing and analysis of research on Alzheimer’s disease.

NIH said March 4 that the AMP-AD Knowledge Portal will provide researchers and scientists access to information on the disease and help them collaborate in developing new drugs and therapies.

“We are determined to reduce the cost and time it takes to discover viable therapeutic targets and bring new diagnostics and effective therapies to people with Alzheimer’s,” said NIH Director Francis Collins.

“The AD initiative of AMP is one way we can revolutionize Alzheimer’s research and drug development by applying the principles of open science to the use and analysis of large and complex human data sets.”

The launch also includes the availability of the first wave of biomedical data that NIH said will facilitate the creation of predictive models for the symptoms and progression of Alzheimer’s disease.

Sage Bionetworks developed the portal in support of the five-year AMP-AD Target Discovery and Preclinical Validation Project and will contribute in the analysis of data sets provided by researchers from several academic institutions across the U.S., which NIH’s National Institute on Aging will coordinate.

“The era of Big Data and open science can be a game-changer in our ability to choose therapeutic targets for Alzheimer’s that may lead to effective therapies tailored to diverse patients,” said Suzana Petanceska, NIA program director for the AMP-AD project.

The project’s steering committee is managed through the Foundation for the NIH and includes the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, FDA, four nonprofit organizations and four pharmaceutical companies, NIH said.

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