Moorfields Eye Hospital’s Insight Health Data Research Hub and insitro have announced a partnership to develop an AI foundation model for the genetic discovery of ocular biomarkers and therapeutic targets for neurodegenerative and associated conditions.
Insight’s ophthalmic imaging bioresource includes 35 million images of the eye.
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Among these are optical coherence tomography (OCT) images, connected to decades of clinical info encompassing chronic metabolic, neurodegenerative and ophthalmic disorders related to ageing.
The AI model will support Insitro’s neuroscience programmes, focusing on detecting OCT-based signatures related to the risk and progression of dementia.
Moorfields Eye Hospital, as part of National Health Service (NHS), gathers a significant volume of OCT images prior to a diagnosis of dementia. It expedites insitro’s offerings in discovering biological targets backed by human genetics.
This collection is crucial to develop a model to distinguish between the OCTs of individuals who develop this condition and those who do not.
The scale of the OCT images, combined with dementia diagnosis data, will facilitate the creation of a quality model for insitro’s drug discovery initiatives.
insitro founder and CEO Daphne Koller stated: “OCT data at this scale contains a treasure trove of information about human health, providing a new window into diseases of the brain, the eye and more.
“Building a world-class foundation model with Insight at Moorfields will help us unravel disease biology and identify novel targets, including for our programmes in neurodegenerative diseases.”
The combined effort is set to leverage the Insight-developed eye research data infrastructure at Moorfields, which has been instrumental in the field of Oculomics.
Foundation models are adaptable across multiple tasks ,eliminating the requirement for task-specific training from the ground up.
insitro teamed up with Eli Lilly in October 2024 to develop treatments for metabolic diseases.
