Neurofit Wins 1st Place in Alzheimer’s Disease Data Initiative Hackathon

[Asia Economy Reporter Jang Hyowon] Neurophit, a specialized company in brain disease imaging artificial intelligence (AI) solutions, announced on the 19th that its three-member team (Team NEUROPHET) from the research headquarters won first place in the innovation category at the ‘NTK (NeuroToolKit) Hackathon’ hosted by the Alzheimer’s Disease Data Initiative (ADDI).

ADDI is a medical research organization formed to overcome dementia such as Alzheimer’s disease. It was established in 2018 when Microsoft founder Bill Gates formed an alliance of organizations and industry partners interested in improving Alzheimer’s disease data sharing. ADDI includes numerous research and medical institutions such as the Alzheimer’s Association, the U.S. National Institutes of Health, and the UK Medical Research Council, as well as multinational pharmaceutical and biotech companies like Biogen and Eli Lilly.

The main task of this NTK Hackathon was to use health-related metadata (NTK) provided in app form by ADDI to find connections with representative Alzheimer’s disease biomarkers: Amyloid (A), Tau (T), and Neurodegeneration (N). The goal was to comprehensively analyze factors such as ▲dietary habits including meat and sugar intake ▲exercise ▲smoking ▲alcohol consumption and their potential links to Alzheimer’s disease using data such as cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and brain volume values.

The three members of Neurophit’s research headquarters?Dr. Kim Eunyoung, Dr. Choi Youngshim, and researcher Lee Minwoo?carried out the task using the basic model of the ‘ATNV project,’ one of Neurophit’s core research projects. The ATNV project quantifies Alzheimer’s disease biomarkers ‘Amyloid (A)-Tau (T)-Neurodegeneration (N)-Vascular neuropathology (V)’ through AI imaging analysis technology to identify the type and stage of dementia. It further classifies the existing Alzheimer’s diagnostic stages of ‘normal, mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s disease’ in detail and is conducting biomarker-focused research to enable earlier diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease at an earlier stage.

Kim Eunyoung, director of Neurophit’s brain imaging research division who participated in the hackathon, said, “It seems the hackathon judges found the data approach using Neurophit’s ATNV project basic model refreshing,” and added, “We are pleased to externally demonstrate the competitiveness of the quantitative analysis technology developed by Neurophit through this hackathon.”

She continued, “We expect to expand the ATNV project in the future to conduct research on the relationship between lifestyle habits such as exercise frequency, alcohol consumption, meat and sugar intake, and cognitive function.”