Alzheimer?s Disease (AD) is a debilitating neurodegenerative disease affecting more than 5 million Americans. Despite significant investment in drug discovery and development, no therapeutic options yet exist that can prevent, slow, or cure AD. The Accelerating Medicines Partnership in Alzheimer?s Disease Target Discovery and Preclinical Validation project (AMP-AD) was designed to help address this problem by identifying candidate targets through evaluation of AD-induced changes in human molecular state on a systems level. The program uses an open science paradigm to support early, iterative integration of resources and evaluation of findings across multiple independent teams. This approach was designed to improve observations through integration of multiple data sources, to increase confidence in outcomes through transparency, reproducibility, and benchmarking of methods and to accelerate evaluation of nominated AD targets by aggregating evidence and expertise across the field. Cross-consortium activities are supported by the Data Coordination Center (DCC) led by Sage Bionetworks. Functions include resource sharing, performance of cross-team analytical projects, and coordinated evaluation across the program of research outcomes. The overarching goal of AMP- AD Data Coordinating Center is to advance the AMP-AD research program through open science practices for coordinated and integrated evaluation of AD targets. As the AMP-AD community expands in terms of people, data, and research projects, several extensions to the existing DCC services are necessary to fully support the program. These include: (a) improved mechanisms to identify resources across the expanding spectrum of projects, (b) support for biologists without informatics expertise to interpret and use AD systems biology resources, (c) mechanisms to integrate external expertise and/or resources where they are needed to advance program goals, and (d) targeted analyses that serve to bridge analytical gaps across individual projects. By combining existing services with these advancements, the DCC will work to: 1. Distribute AMP-AD systems biology assets through the AMP-AD Knowledge Portal. 2. Integrate research efforts across AMP-AD projects through cross-team analyses. 3. Expand the broader impact of AMP-AD through community outreach. The proposed work is designed to maximize the vast resources and biological insights within AMP-AD and to accelerate characterization and validation of AMP-AD targets through the open dissemination and evaluation of a set of high-confidence therapeutic targets.
AD is a universally fatal disease for which no disease-modifying therapies have been successfully brought to market. The Accelerating Medicines Partnership in Alzheimer?s Disease Target Discovery and Preclinical Validation project (AMP-AD) is working to use systems biology approaches to identify candidate targets with potential therapeutic impact. By creating an open and transparent research ecosystem, this program will combine evidence in support of candidate targets from a wide array of experts and research domains across the broad research community. !
