Sunderland academic’s Alzheimer's research selected for Bill Gates Snr Fellowship

Could artificial intelligence (AI) hold the key to identifying the early stages of degenerative brain diseases and open the doors to interventions before it’s too late?

For almost a decade Dr Sam Danso’s career has focussed on the application of AI and Big Data technologies to brain health research with particular focus on Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD).

Today, that work has been recognised, as the Senior Lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Sunderland, has been unveiled as one of seven academics globally, and the UK’s only academic, to be selected for the inaugural William H Gates Snr Fellowship, established to support the new generation of researchers who have novel approaches to end Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.

It is estimated there are currently 35.6 million people globally living with the disease, with eight million new cases recorded annually.

The Fellowship has been set up by the Alzheimer's Disease Data Initiative (ADDI), a coalition of leading academic, government, industry, and non-profit organisations, dedicated to advancing scientific breakthroughs in the treatment of ADRD. The Fellowship is named after William Gates Snr who left a legacy in law, philanthropy and activism, and is the father of Billionaire Microsoft founder’s Bill Gates. He suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and died in 2020 at age 94.

The two-year program provides researchers a $100k financial award, mentoring and network opportunities, and other supports such as publication assistance and conference attendance.

Sam has already been involved in various research programmes including: the PREVENT Dementia Programme in the UK and Ireland –and the European Prevention of Alzheimer’s Dementia.

Sam’s Fellowship programme is drawing on AI and Big Data to explore risk factors for early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.

He explains: “While most ADRD have no cure, early detection and diagnosis has the potential to delay the onset and underpinning process. Those early risk include factors such as genetics, lifetime experiences, environmental and lifestyle playing a varying role in the process. The collective behaviours of risk factors at an individual level and how that manifests need to be understood to be able to diagnose and intervene.”

The two-year research programme will draw on existing data from the US, UK and European countries, looking into various populations and individuals with a related neurodegenerative disease, employing AI and Big Data to support the research work, identifying patterns and developing risk prediction models.

It’s anticipated Sam will conduct his work at the University of Sunderland campus, within the School of Computer Science.

Sam added: “I am honoured to be announced as a Gates Fellow. The work we’re doing can help transform so many lives, not just for those potentially at risk of ADRD, but for their wider support network of families and friends, who often have to watch their loved ones suffer over time, it can be devastating.”

Tetsuyuki Maruyama, Executive Director of the Alzheimer's Disease Data Initiative, says: “The AD Data Initiative honors William H. Gates Sr.’s lifetime commitment to fostering a better world with this two-year Fellowship. We thank the exceptional candidate pool – the quality of research ideas and professional backgrounds was astonishing.

“Our seven Fellows proposed research demonstrates boldness, creativity, and innovation. This leaves us with eager optimism for a future that sees the end of Alzheimer's and related dementias.”

About Dr Sam Danso

In addition to being a Senior Lecturer at the University of Sunderland, Sam is an Honorary Academic Fellow at Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences. Prior to his current role, Sam held several post-doctoral research positions within the University of Edinburgh and Newcastle University focusing on application of AI to a variety of problems. He also held a Research Fellowship role at the Information Commissioner’s Office of the United Kingdom (UK) where he led research projects to shape policy on use of AI technologies to drive the UK economy. He has also worked for the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a Research Centre for the Ghana Health Service in Kintampo, Ghana for over a decade.

Sam holds a PhD in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Leeds; an MSc in Advanced Software Engineering; BSc in Computer Science and a member of the British Computer Society and an Associate Member of Royal Society of Medicine
His research interest is in the area of application of AI and Big Data technologies to Brain Health research with particular focus on dementia and healthy aging. He is also interested in privacy of AI models within the context of Explainable AI and data protection.

About the Fellowship

The William H. Gates Sr. Fellowship from the AD Data Initiative encourages and supports researchers from around the world to be bold, creative, and innovative in their approach to ADRD research. This may include generating new hypotheses about the biology of dementia or challenging existing ones; and using novel data analysis ideas or statistical approaches on human or human-derived anonymised data to make new discoveries in ADRD.

Named after William H. Gates Sr., this Fellowship honours his legacy of advocacy and philanthropy. Mr Gates Sr., passed away from Alzheimer’s disease in 2020. This year’s inaugural cohort and subsequent ones will be at the forefront of building a community and increasing collaborations as we move further and faster to end ADRD.
The Fellowship is a two-year program that provides researchers a $100,000 financial award, mentoring and network opportunities, and other supports such as publication assistance and conference attendance. Information about the 2024 Fellowship program, including application details will be available early next year.