Advancing Alzheimer’s Research with Generative AI and Single-Cell Genomics: An Admera Health & ODU Partnership
Alzheimer’s disease is a complex neurodegenerative disorder characterized by progressive cognitive decline and highly heterogeneous pathology. While advancements in multi-omics technologies provide robust datasets that shape our understanding of these neurodegenerative disorders, researchers still face significant challenges in integrating these diverse datasets and inferring temporal and mechanistic relationships that drive disease progression.
To help overcome this challenge, Admera Health has partnered with Old Dominion University (ODU) on a grant-funded research initiative that aims to develop a knowledge-guided, generative AI platform for Alzheimer’s disease research. By combining single-cell genomics, advanced bioinformatics, and explainable artificial intelligence, the collaboration aims to uncover molecular drivers of disease progression and cognitive decline.
The video above introduces the partnership and highlights how academic and industry expertise are coming together to apply AI and next-generation sequencing in new ways for neurodegenerative disease research.
A Grant-Funded Collaboration at the Intersection of AI and Genomics
The project is a collaborative effort supported by a network of academic and research partners, including the Penn Artificial Intelligence and Technology Collaboratory for Healthy Aging (PennAITech), with funding from national organizations dedicated to Alzheimer’s disease research.
This initiative brings together complementary expertise across academia and industry to address long-standing challenges in Alzheimer’s research, particularly the difficulty of linking genetic variation to disease progression within specific brain cell types.
Using Generative AI to Link Genes, Cell Types, and Cognitive Decline
At the core of this initiative is scGPT, a pre-trained generative AI model designed for single-cell genomics. Admera Health’s efforts with ODU involve fine-tuning this model using large, well-characterized Alzheimer’s disease datasets, including:
ROSMAP (Religious Orders Study and Memory Aging Project)
SEA-AD ( Seattle Alzheimer’s Disease Brain Cell Atlas)
By integrating prior biological knowledge into the AI framework, the team aims to identify cell-type specific genes and pathways that are of neuropathological burden and cognitive impairment.
This approach moves beyond traditional ‘black-box’ models, emphasizing mechanistic insight and biological interpretability, key requirements for translating AI-driven discoveries into meaningful biomedical understanding.
Bioinformatics and Single-Cell Analysis
Admera Health will provide deep expertise in bioinformatics, single-cell RNA-seq analysis, and AI-enabled genomics. The insights generated through this research will also inform ongoing improvements to Admera Health’s single-cell analysis pipelines, including more accurate and interpretable cell type annotation. These advances support researchers studying complex diseases where cellular context is critical.
The partnership reflects Admera’s broader commitment to building trustworthy, scalable, and biologically grounded AI solutions for the life sciences.
Building Trustworthy AI for Neurodegenerative Disease Research
A defining focus of the project is ensuring model reliability and transparency. To support scientific rigor, initiatives will include:
Explainable AI methods, including Shapley value analysis
Conformal prediction approaches to quantify uncertainty
Direct comparison with traditional bioinformatics workflows
Together, these strategies help ensure that AI-derived insights are reproducible, interpretable, and actionable - all critical requirements for advancing Alzheimer's disease research and therapeutic development.
Advancing Alzheimer’s Research Through AI-enabled NGS
By bringing together generative AI, single-cell sequencing, and advanced bioinformatics, the Admera Health & ODU collaboration is positioned to accelerate discovery in Alzheimer’s disease research.
Commercialization efforts led by Admera Health will leverage NGS and bioinformatics services to translate these innovations into scalable tools for researchers across academic, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical development, helping move Alzheimer’s research from complex data toward meaningful biological insight.
Learn more about the collaboration in the news release and on our YouTube channel.