Alamar Biosciences is expanding a partnership with the Alzheimer’s Disease Data Initiative and Gates Ventures to profile 86,000 additional samples for neurodegenerative disease research.

86,000 samples added to collaboration

Alamar Biosciences is expanding its collaboration with the Alzheimer’s Disease Data Initiative and Gates Ventures to profile an additional 86,000 plasma samples using its NULISAseq Neuro 220 panel.

The expansion builds on a multi-centre initiative announced in June 2025, which profiled more than 55,000 samples using Alamar’s NULISA technology.

Around 21,000 of the newly added samples are part of a national-scale proteomics initiative launched with research universities in July.

When completed in 2027, the combined dataset is expected to contain more than 140,000 samples from multiple geographical regions and cohorts. The data will also be integrated with clinical and longitudinal outcome information and made available to researchers through the Global Neurodegeneration Proteomics Consortium.

The scale of the dataset could allow researchers to investigate differences between individuals with neurodegenerative disease, rather than focusing solely on individual biomarkers.

“Multiplex protein profiling gives researchers the ability to examine multiple biological processes at once, and at this scale with deep clinical phenotyping, the goal shifts from detecting pathology to describing it: characterizing disease subtypes, determining stage, and tracking how trajectories evolve over time,” said Yuling Luo, founder, CEO and chair of Alamar Biosciences.

Multiplex profiling for neurodegenerative disease

The NULISAseq Neuro 220 panel measures approximately 220 neurological biomarker targets from small volumes of plasma or cerebrospinal fluid.

The panel is designed to examine biological processes associated with neurodegeneration, neuroinflammation, synaptic function and vascular pathology simultaneously.

This differs from approaches that assess individual biomarkers separately and could provide researchers with a broader picture of the biological changes associated with neurodegenerative diseases.

The companies said the large dataset, combined with deep clinical phenotyping, could also enable researchers to investigate disease subtypes and progression across different populations.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning could subsequently be applied to the dataset to identify patterns involving proteins and biological pathways. However, these potential applications remain research objectives rather than established clinical uses.

Alzheimer’s biomarkers and disease trajectories

The Neuro 220 panel also includes eMTBR-Tau, which Alamar describes as an emerging blood-based biomarker for tau tangle burden.

The company said the biomarker complements established measures such as p-Tau217 and could allow researchers to examine multiple pathological features associated with Alzheimer’s disease using blood-based testing.

Niranjan Bose, managing director of health and life sciences at Gates Ventures and interim executive director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Data Initiative, said the expanded dataset could help researchers examine differences in disease across individuals and populations.

“Multiplex protein profiling at this scale, paired with deep clinical phenotyping, gives us a real opportunity to understand how disease varies across individuals and populations, not just confirm its presence,” Bose said.

The projected dataset of more than 140,000 samples will span multiple cohorts and geographies, providing researchers with data that could be used to investigate biological differences in neurodegenerative disease and how those differences relate to clinical outcomes.

The collaboration is expected to be completed in 2027.