Australian researchers find new genetic links to Alzheimer's disease

CANBERRA — Australian scientists have used artificial intelligence to identify two new genetic variants associated with Alzheimer's disease.

In research published on Wednesday, a team from the Australian e-Health Research Center, a division of the national science agency Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, or CSIRO, detailed how they used AI to discover two new genetic variations and 95 gene interactions that could contribute to the onset of Alzheimer's.

Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia, accounting for up to 70 percent of the more than 55 million cases of dementia worldwide, the World Health Organization said.

Alzheimer's is a progressive disease that causes a decline in cognitive functions, and there is no known cure for it.

However, by identifying genetic variants and the interactions between them, known as epistasis, researchers are aiming to measure how differences in people's genes contribute to the onset and expression of Alzheimer's to help identify at-risk patients.

Mischa Lundberg, a CSIRO postdoctoral fellow and lead author of the new study, said that by using CSIRO AI tools to incorporate epistatic interactions, the team was able to capture 10.41 percent more phenotypic variance than previous methods.

A phenotype is a person's observable traits such as blood type, height and eye color.

"This means an increase in our ability to capture the drivers of disease, which is important for Alzheimer's research because by knowing underlying drivers, we can identify at-risk patients sooner and intervene earlier," Lundberg said in a media release.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare estimates that, due to an aging and growing population, the number of Australians living with dementia will grow from 401,300 in 2022 to 849,300 by 2058.

Xinhua