Dementia Researcher Blogs

Dr Clíona Farrell narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher.In 1986 Carol Jennings, a teacher from Coventry, answered an appeal in the Alzheimer's Society newsletter with a letter and a hand-drawn family tree. Her family went on to reveal the London mutation in the APP gene, and forty years of Alzheimer's research grew from it, reaching the first disease-modifying treatments shortly before Carol's own death from the disease in 2024.In this blog Clíona, reports from a UCL200 screening of the BBC documentary The Jennings vs Alzheimer's and the panel that followed. The panel was Stuart Jennings, Prof Catherine Mummery, Prof Nick Fox and Dr Richard Oakley of Alzheimer's Society. The audience wanted to know how anyone can stay hopeful when today's drugs do so little, and the answer came back that this is the start, not the end. From there the discussion turned to what is holding the field back. Diagnosis and post-diagnostic support are underfunded, and stigma still keeps people away from their GP. Researchers are too often poor at explaining their own progress, and dementia sits a long way behind cancer on public health effort. It closes with Carol's habit of asking not why, but what, and her husband's call for everyone to keep putting that question to the people with power to act.https://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk/blog-forty-years-of-dementia-progress-carol-jennings/--Dr Clíona Farrell is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the UK Dementia Research Institute at University College London. Her work focuses on understanding neuroinflammation in Down syndrome, both prior to, and in response to, Alzheimer’s disease pathology. Originally from Dublin, Ireland, Clíona completed her undergraduate degree in Neuroscience in Trinity College, and then worked as a research assistant in the Royal College of Surgeons studying ALS and Parkinson’s disease. She also knows the secret behind scooping the perfect 99 ice-cream cone.--Enjoy listening? We're always looking for new bloggers, drop us a line. http://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.ukThis podcast is brought to you by University College London in association with the National Institute for Health and Care Research, Alzheimer's Association, Alzheimer's Research UK, Alzheimer's Society and Race Against Dementia, who we thank for their ongoing support.--Leave us a Tiphttps://dementia-researcher.captivate.fm/supportFollow us on social media:https://www.instagram.com/dementia_researcher/ https://www.facebook.com/Dementia.Researcher/https://www.twitter.com/demrescommunityhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/dementia-researcher https://bsky.app/profile/dementiaresearcher.bsky.socialDownload and Register with our Community App:https://www.onelink.to/dementiaresearcher

Dr Becky Carlyle narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher.Every good lab trains people who then leave it, and in this blog Becky writes about what that costs the person left behind.The first half is practical: why no one is truly irreplaceable, how record keeping and an electronic lab notebook keep critical knowledge out of a single person's head, and why an offboarding protocol has to start months before the last afternoon.The second half is about the part of the job nobody puts in the induction pack. By the time you are a PI you are the one who stays while everyone else rotates past, and in a funding climate where good people leave because the money ran out rather than because they wanted to, the loss arrives mixed up with guilt. Becky writes openly about her own recent departure, the meeting where she could not hold it together, and what pulled her out of it: a network of peers who are not going anywhere, treating mobility as something that genuinely serves the researcher, and measuring your own success by what your people go on to do once they are gone.https://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk/blog-when-a-postdoc-leaves-your-lab/--Dr Becky Carlyle is an Alzheimer's Research UK Senior Research Fellow at University of Oxford, and has previously worked in the USA. Becky writes about her experiences of starting up a research lab and progressing into a more senior research role. Becky's research uses mass-spectrometry to quantify thousands of proteins in the brains and biofluids of people with dementia. Her lab is working on various projects, including work to compare brain tissue from people with dementia from Alzheimer’s Disease, to tissue from people who have similar levels of Alzheimer’s Disease pathology but no memory problems. Becky is also a mum, she runs, drinks herbal teas and reads lots of books.--Enjoy listening? We're always looking for new bloggers, drop us a line. http://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.ukThis podcast is brought to you by University College London in association with the National Institute for Health and Care Research, Alzheimer's Association, Alzheimer's Research UK, Alzheimer's Society and Race Against Dementia, who we thank for their ongoing support.--Leave us a Tiphttps://dementia-researcher.captivate.fm/supportFollow us on social media:https://www.instagram.com/dementia_researcher/ https://www.facebook.com/Dementia.Researcher/https://www.twitter.com/demrescommunityhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/dementia-researcher https://bsky.app/profile/dementiaresearcher.bsky.socialDownload and Register with our Community App:https://www.onelink.to/dementiaresearcher

Beccy Owne narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher.Beccy, a PhD student at the University of Warwick studying how tau disrupts ion channels in Alzheimer's disease, is nearly halfway through her PhD and looks back at what it has taught her away from the bench. She explains why research runs on a much longer clock than undergraduate or master's projects, why not knowing the answer is the whole point, and how a flash talk given two weeks into her studies changed how she handles new challenges in and out of the lab. She also covers keeping work and home separate, learning by doing, teaching in the lab, and treating failed experiments as a normal part of science. A good listen for anyone in the early years of a PhD, or anyone wondering if they're on track.https://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk/blog-10-things-my-phd-has-taught-me-so-far/--Beccy Owen is a PhD Researcher at the University of Warwick, exploring how tau pathology disrupts neuronal ion channels and brain network activity in Alzheimer’s disease. As part of the Midlands Integrative Biosciences Training Programme, her work uses electrophysiology to better understand the molecular drivers of neurodegeneration. Originally from the Welsh countryside, Beccy’s passion for dementia research was shaped during her postgraduate studies and through personal experience with a family member living with the condition. She will be sharing her journey, insights, and lessons learned throughout her PhD here on the blog.Find Becky on LinkedIn--Enjoy listening? We're always looking for new bloggers, drop us a line. http://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.ukThis podcast is brought to you by University College London in association with the National Institute for Health and Care Research, Alzheimer's Association, Alzheimer's Research UK, Alzheimer's Society and Race Against Dementia, who we thank for their ongoing support.--Leave us a Tiphttps://dementia-researcher.captivate.fm/supportFollow us on social media:https://www.instagram.com/dementia_researcher/ https://www.facebook.com/Dementia.Researcher/https://www.twitter.com/demrescommunityhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/dementia-researcher https://bsky.app/profile/dementiaresearcher.bsky.socialDownload and Register with our Community App:https://www.onelink.to/dementiaresearcher

Jacqui Kerr narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher.Jacqui manages a research network. Most days that means teams, partnerships and delivery pathways. Then she drove north to a memory café in a rural Scottish town, sat down with a cuppa, and found herself back in the job she trained for in 2000. She had come to talk about research opportunities. What she got instead was a roomful of people asking how to take part, what would be expected of them, and whether living miles from a study site would count them out. Nobody was put off. She writes about what that afternoon put back into the work.https://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk/blog-returning-to-my-roots-visiting-a-memory-cafe/Jacqueline Kerr is the Network Manager for the Neuroprogressive and Dementia Network in Scotland. With a background in research management and public engagement, she is dedicated to supporting clinical trials and improving access to research across the country. Jacqueline works closely with clinicians, researchers, and the public to raise awareness of dementia studies and encourage participation.Leave us a Tiphttps://dementia-researcher.captivate.fm/supportFollow us on social media:https://www.instagram.com/dementia_researcher/ https://www.facebook.com/Dementia.Researcher/https://www.twitter.com/demrescommunityhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/dementia-researcher https://bsky.app/profile/dementiaresearcher.bsky.socialDownload and Register with our Community App:https://www.onelink.to/dementiaresearcher

Rahul Sidhu narrates his blog written for Dementia Researcher.Rahul is a regular Dementia Researcher blogger, usually writing about life as a PhD student and his work on heart disease and dementia. This time he goes back further, to his grandad, who lived with vascular dementia through Rahul's teenage years and died in 2019. Rahul describes the man his grandad was before dementia, a doctor who survived Partition and rebuilt his life in England, then walks through how the disease changed him, the family's decision to move him into a nursing home, and the stigma around dementia that he says still exists in many South Asian communities including his own. Worth reading whenever the day-to-day of research starts to feel disconnected from why you started it.https://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk/blog-my-grandads-story-why-i-became-a-neuroscientist/--​Rahul Sidhu is a PhD student at The University of Sheffield, focusing on the effects of heart disease on dementia in preclinical models of Alzheimer's disease. His research aims to uncover how cardiovascular health influences neurodegenerative conditions, potentially leading to novel therapeutic strategies.​ Find Rahul on LinkedIn--Enjoy listening? We're always looking for new bloggers, drop us a line. http://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.ukThis podcast is brought to you by University College London in association with the National Institute for Health and Care Research, Alzheimer's Association, Alzheimer's Research UK, Alzheimer's Society and Race Against Dementia, who we thank for their ongoing support.--Leave us a Tiphttps://dementia-researcher.captivate.fm/supportFollow us on social media:https://www.instagram.com/dementia_researcher/ https://www.facebook.com/Dementia.Researcher/https://www.twitter.com/demrescommunityhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/dementia-researcher https://bsky.app/profile/dementiaresearcher.bsky.socialDownload and Register with our Community App:https://www.onelink.to/dementiaresearcher