Leadership Perspectives - SYNTHIA’s First Year: Matt Clement, WP8 and UC Alzheimer's Disease Lead

We spoke with Matt Clement from Gates Ventures, who co-leads the Alzheimer’s disease use case and Work Package 8 (Ethical, legal and societal issues). His perspective spans both the scientific and governance dimensions of SYNTHIA, giving him insight into how the project is progressing and what foundations are needed for long-term impact.

Early Milestones and First Synthetic Data

Clement highlighted several important achievements during SYNTHIA’s first year, beginning with one of the most essential elements of the project: data access. “Some of the key milestones have been gaining access to quite a bit of data thus far,” he noted, emphasising the scale of collaboration required to secure relevant datasets across partners.

Another major accomplishment was the completion of the study protocols that will guide each use case throughout the project. For Clement, an especially exciting development is that “some of the use cases have begun generating synthetic data, which is great to see this early in the project.” These early outputs mark an important transition from planning to active experimentation and validation.

Priorities for Year Two: Building Sustainability and Strengthening Governance

Looking ahead, Clement pointed to several priorities that will shape the project’s next phase. “Some of the key priorities for the coming year relate to the business and partnership development and sustainability model,” he explained. Establishing how SYNTHIA will evolve beyond the IHI funding period is crucial even at this early stage.

Continued synthetic data generation across use cases and within Work Package 6 (SDG Tools and Methods) will also be central to the project’s progression. In addition, Clement highlighted the importance of the Work Package 8 role: “The definition of the data governance framework will be incredibly important for SYNTHIA in terms of outreach to stakeholders and communities.” Ensuring clarity around ethics, security, and responsible use will be essential as SYNTHIA engages with wider audiences.

A Message to the Community

Clement offered a candid reflection on the complexity of SYNTHIA’s mission: “One of the key messages to highlight is that this is difficult. If it were easy, we would have achieved this long ago.” He emphasised that synthetic data raises novel questions, technical, ethical, and operational, that cannot be solved by any one organisation alone. For him, collaboration is not just beneficial but necessary: “It is important that we partner together to answer some of these key questions about how synthetic data can be used in a safe, ethical, and secure manner.”
Only through shared effort, he notes, can the project unlock synthetic data’s potential to address some of healthcare’s most challenging problems.

Watch the full video interview with Matt Clement