Happy Holidays to all our listeners. Celebrate the season with the Dementia Researcher Podcast Christmas Special!
Hosted by Adam Smith, this episode features regular bloggers from the Dementia Researcher website, Dr Anna Volkmer, Dr Connor Richardson, Dr Clarissa Giebel, Hannah Hussain, Dr Jodi Watt, and Ajantha Abey.
Together, they reminisce about their 2023 journeys, discuss groundbreaking developments in their research field and explore what they’re most excited about for the coming year. Laced with humor and camaraderie, the episode includes a fun engaging quiz, making for a delightful mix of reflection, anticipation, and festive fun.
Voice Over:
The Dementia Researcher podcast, talking careers, research, conference highlights, and so much more.
Adam Smith:
Hello and welcome to the Dementia Researcher podcast. Coming up in this show, I’ll be talking with some of our incredible dementia research bloggers in a festive special. We’re going to be reflecting a little on 2023 and talk about plans for next year, and we’re going to test their knowledge in a fun quiz. So, let’s get into it. Hello, I’m Adam Smith. I’m the Programme Director for Dementia Researcher, and today I have the pleasure of hosting this show, but that’s enough from me. Let’s meet our brilliant guest today. I’m joined by Ajantha Abey, Dr. Connor Richardson, Dr. Clarissa Giebel, Hannah Hussain, Dr. Anna Volkmer, and Dr. Jodi Watt. Hi, everybody.
Dr Anna Volkmer:
Hi.
Dr Clarissa Giebel:
Hello.
Adam Smith:
Sadly, not all of our regular bloggers could join us today, but I know they have some great festive blogs planned. So do remember to subscribe to our blogs podcast and you’ll hear those. So, are we feeling all Christmassy?
Dr Anna Volkmer:
Yeah, absolutely.
Adam Smith:
If you are listening to this rather than watching, absolutely everybody is wearing a Christmas hat and Christmas jumper. The entire thing is entirely decorated all around them. It’s incredibly festive. If we do normal introductions, I think we’re going to be here all day. So, for the first in our series of challenges, I’m going to ask everybody. I’m going to go around and they’re going to have to describe themselves in 30 seconds or less. I’m going to set a timer on my phone to alert us when your 30 seconds is up. And because Anna is regular guest host and does this all the time, I’m going to go to Anna first. Anna, your 3O seconds starts now.
Dr Anna Volkmer:
Hi, everybody. My name is Anna Volkmer. I’m a speech and language therapist by background, but I’m a senior research fellow, NIHR funded advanced researcher at UCL specialising in dementia and interventions for people with progressive language difficulties and their family members. I think I beat the clock.
Adam Smith:
You did. That’s rubbish. You didn’t get to hear the cool noise at the end. I didn’t really think this through, did I, clearly?
Dr Anna Volkmer:
No.
Adam Smith:
Okay. Connor, you are next.
Dr Connor Richardson:
Hi, I’m Connor Richardson. I’m based at Newcastle University. I’m a biochemist and biostatistician by background. I’m doing a NIHR fellowship at Newcastle at the minute on dementia epidemiology, looking at the effect of anti-inflammatories on dementia risk.
Adam Smith:
You beat the clock too. And have you just come back from your… because you are a Dem Comm fellow.
Dr Connor Richardson:
I am, yeah.
Adam Smith:
And I should, this is a chance to get a plug in because we’re just about to embark on recording a new series with Dem Comm fellows. Dem Comm Fellows are funded by the NIHR and Alzheimer’s Society, and there are over 50 of them working in the applied research collaboratives up and down the country doing amazingly incredibly diverse projects on everything from eyesight to falling downstairs or prevention falling down, all kinds of stuff. And we need to start a new podcast series with them where they’re all going to take a turn at hosting and being guests on the show to talk about their work with a co-host who is for the first series, it’s going to be Chris Roberts, who’s somebody who’s been on the show before, somebody who lives with dementia. So, watch this space for that. And thank you for joining, Connor. I’m going to go to Clarissa next.
Dr Clarissa Giebel:
Yes. Hi, everyone. So, I’m Clarissa Giebel, senior research fellow at the University of Liverpool. My background is neuropsychology, and my research is looking at dementia care inequalities and how we can find solutions so that everyone with dementia, their families can access care more equitably. And I’m also passionate advocate for public involvement. So, I run the Liverpool Dementia Ageing Research. Forum.
Adam Smith:
Thank you very much, Clarissa, and you also beat the clock. Hannah, you go next.
Hannah Hussain:
Hi, everyone. I’m Hannah Hussain and I’ve got a background in pharmacy and in health economics. I’m currently a third year PhD student at the University of Sheffield, and my research is looking into how to best measure health related quality of life for youth in dementia economic evaluations.
Adam Smith:
Thank you very much. You did that in 20 seconds. Clearly, this wasn’t challenging enough. I needed to give you 15 seconds. I’m going to go to Jodi next.
Dr Jodi Watt:
Hi. So, I’m Jodi. I’m a postdoc research assistant with Professor Terry Quinn at Glasgow, and I’m currently looking at drug repurposing for Alzheimer’s and dementia. I also focus on a lot of my lived experience as someone who’s queer and neurodiverse and see how that relates to the world of Alzheimer’s research.
Adam Smith:
Thank you very much. Well done. You beat the timer. Top pressure on you now. Ajantha, you are the last to go.
Ajantha Abey:
Should I drag mine on?
Adam Smith:
You’re the last to go. And if you don’t achieve this, I mean I don’t really know whether I want you to do this or not. Probably wants you to not actually do this so that I didn’t waste my time paid 79 pence for a noise effect. Go.
Ajantha Abey:
All right. Hi, my name is Ajantha Abey. I am a PhD student at the University of Oxford. I’m in my final year in the Wade-Martins lab. I’m pathology by background and I currently work on looking at selective vulnerability in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease using iPSC models.
Adam Smith:
Is there anything else you’d like to add to that?
Ajantha Abey:
And I’m having to finish next year.
Adam Smith:
Oh, do you know what? I didn’t even play this stupid noise. So that’s the thing. Do you want to know what the noise was just so that you’ve actually heard it after all that selling it up?
Dr Anna Volkmer:
It’s all worth it.
Adam Smith:
It cost me 79 pence to that for the purposes of the podcast. Well, with that out the way, I’m going to start by asking you all what your personal highlight was. So personal highlights of 2023. I’m going to go to Clarissa first.
Dr Clarissa Giebel:
Lovely.
Adam Smith:
Has it been a good year, Clarissa?
Dr Clarissa Giebel:
I think so. There’s always grand rejections and paper rejections, but we just have to suck it up. Unfortunately, we all get them, but we also get some positives. But I think on the whole, I’m incredibly exhausted from this year, just want my Christmas break to be honest. But for me, there’s two highlights that really stand out. One is a lot of travelling this year for research work, not just conferences, which is one of the many reasons I went into this job, because I like to travel and meet new people and new communities and new settings and learn from them. And I went to Bengaluru in India, and I also went to Medellín and other places in Columbia. So really understanding how people from very different cultures and socio-economic backgrounds understand dementia. For me, that’s really important and the inequalities and barriers to getting even a diagnosis or getting any type of care if they do. That’s one of the main highlights.
But the second highlight, as I was saying earlier, I really love public involvement and engagement. And this year, we co-produced a game on all of our research. So, Dementia Inequalities Game. It was fantastic to launch it during World Alzheimer’s Month with lots of caregivers and people with dementia and it’s available on the Lewy Body Society website. So now what we’re trying to do as opposed to doing more research, really, we’re trying to use it as a possible interventional tool, as an educational tool for health and social care professionals and students to learn about dementia and inequalities and maybe actually change their care practices as a result of playing a board game. So, for me, it’s really novel and different. So really interesting.
Adam Smith:
That’s wonderful. Thank you, Clarissa. And you’ve written a blog on your work creating that game as well, haven’t you? And it’s available to buy on the Lewy Body Society website.
Dr Clarissa Giebel:
Yeah. So, all goes back to charity.
Adam Smith:
Fantastic. What a great year. Thank you, Clarissa. What about you, Hannah?
Hannah Hussain:
I’ve got a few kinds of personal and then kind of academic highlights. So, I also did a lot of travel this year, but for personal reason, so I got to celebrate.
Adam Smith:
It still counts.
Hannah Hussain:
Yeah, it still counts. Some nice trips and just getting away and seeing the world a little bit more, which I think is one of the things about doing a PhD. It’s a lot of work, but it’s also, you don’t need to request on your knees. So as long as you can work hard in the times when you need to work hard, you can fit the things that you want to do around that. So, I think that’s one of the things we don’t maybe talk about enough. And it’s been quite nice to be able to be present and engage and things like that. And my brother got married this year, so I was able to be really hands-on. I mean, I’m catching up now, but it’s fine. I was there at the time.
Adam Smith:
Is that because you are self-funding your PhD? Because I imagine not everybody can just go take time off.
Hannah Hussain:
I am not self-funding, but because it’s flexi hours for me…
Adam Smith:
I see.
Hannah Hussain:
… I can work longer hours after. I can work on the weekend, which just means I can be present in those times when I want to be present. And I’m not going to lie, working from home means that everyone is constantly asking me to do things. They just think you’re not working when you’re at home, because I still live in my family home. In terms of my academic highlights, I presented at the PROMs conference and that was a big thing for me because I was actually able to integrate the feedback that I got from that presentation into a paper that I’m currently working on. So, it was quite nice to actually see that through and get that into the works this year. And another thing, which is one of the things I blogged about was being able to overcome this learning curve with statistical mapping. So, I’m a pharmacist. I’m not an analyst by background, but now I would proudly call myself an analyst, because I’ve been able to master this technique, and it’s just a really big sense of accomplishment.
Adam Smith:
Awesome. Well, that remind us of what does PROMs stand for.
Hannah Hussain:
Patient-reported outcome measures.
Adam Smith:
Perfect. And I think there is somebody in the room that might be able to help you with those stats if you ever get stuck, and I’ll come to you next, Connor. Connor, our resident statistician expert.
Dr Connor Richardson:
That was a really smooth segue.
Adam Smith:
Yeah, it is.
Dr Connor Richardson:
Also just remembered I’ve got Christmas Groot.
Adam Smith:
Well done.
Dr Connor Richardson:
[inaudible 00:11:18] Yeah, I feel like I’ve really sort of ran the gamut of the real, real highs and real, real lows of academic life over the past year. So, I’ve had big rejections, which were horrible, but then I’ve also had… So, I got rejected for a job that I applied for, which was really sad, but then I got the NIHR fellowship, which I was really not expecting to get. And it was one of those weird, bizarre things where you put loads of your effort at a job, which I was really thought was mine. And then this ARC fellowship, which I thought they’re not going to be interested out stats.And then I thought of did it on a whim and a prayer and then they loved it, but yeah, had a few rejections, but the fellowship’s been a big, big high and travelling as well. Got to AIC was really fun this year in Amsterdam. It was nice not to have to traverse the globe to get there. It was the first time really; I’ve been to a conference and already had connections that I knew people were going who I’ve already networked with. So, I felt like a little bit more grown-up researcher, and I didn’t feel like I was going there going, “Oh, I need to go and make friends.”
Adam Smith:
I know exactly what you’re saying. Next week, I’m going to the Motor Neuron Disease Conference in Switzerland, and we don’t usually do much motor neuron disease and kind of do with ALS. The thing that I’m kind of going, “Oh, no. I won’t know anybody. I don’t know anybody.” I even emailed some people and said, “Hey, are you going?” And everybody said, “No.” I think it is exciting when you go and you’re knowing, it feels like you’re catching up with friends as well as enjoying the research as well. Well, thanks, Connor. And somebody else who knows a lot about applying, successfully applying to the NIHR for funding is Anna Volkmer who I’m going to come to Anna next. I’m getting good at this.
Dr Anna Volkmer:
You are. Beautiful segues. So yeah, I’m in the second year of my NIHR Advanced Fellowship and one of the big highlights for me was when I put in my application for my advanced fellowship, I included funding for my very own PhD student, and they started in September. So, it felt really exciting because I’ve always…
Adam Smith:
Wanted somebody else to do all your work.
Dr Anna Volkmer:
I’ve always loved bossing people around [inaudible 00:13:59] It’s not hard, but equally. So, I am mindful that in speech and language therapy, there aren’t very, very many speech therapists who get NIHR funding. We’re one of the least funded professional groups probably because we don’t apply for that much, but it was something I could really do for is offer a fully funded PhD position for a speech and language therapists. So, it’s been very exciting to be able to have my lovely new PhD students start who hopefully you might see a little bit more of.
Adam Smith:
They’re going to come on the podcast and talk about their work. We’ve been having that conversation offline.
Dr Anna Volkmer:
Yeah, exactly. So that was one of my highlights. And I guess another one of my highlights is that for this year is about wrangling people again, but one of my big projects has been about trying to develop a core outcome set for people with primary progressive aphasia. And part of that work is actually getting other researchers to be bothered about it. I just recently had the last phase of that work and managed to wrangle 46 researchers from about 20 different countries from all different professions and force them to engage with it. So that felt like a really big achievement to actually manipulate people to do what I want them to do.
Adam Smith:
I’m sure they weren’t manipulated at all. They saw the incredible value of what it was you were doing and said, “Yeah, we’ll have some of that.” Because it’s funny, because I think through your blogs as well, because you’ve told this story for so many years with us now, kind of from back when you were really just very early stage at your PhD, but true to know. I’ve had so many people approach us say, “Oh, I always read Anna’s blogs.” And I think you’ve picked up an international following as a result, as I’m sure many of you have as well, but yeah, well done. Congratulations on getting your student. Jodi, why don’t I come to you next?
Dr Jodi Watt:
Hello. So yeah, I think I’ve had a few highlights this year thankfully, because it’s always a bit… I’ve had a few years during my PhD where I did not have any for a year. So yeah, it was nice to have a few this year. Particularly, so I work on drug repurposing and I’m using some interesting drug-wide association study methodology, and I’m getting the first results out of that now, which are really exciting. So, I’m hoping next year will be a lot of dissemination of that and a bit more travel than I’ve had this year. I’m also part of something really exciting that’s happening in Scotland, which is the Brain Health ARC, which is sort of an alliance of various different groups for brain health research.
So, I’m the EDI rep on that, so that’s very exciting for me as well. I’m also, maybe it’s just that I’m talking about these things more, but I also feel like I’ve had a lot more conversations this year around diversity and inclusion, particularly around queerness and disability and neurodiversity and actually as well with Scotland, the island problem, if any of your familiar with it, with the fact that essentially if you live on an island often good luck, which is unfortunate, but it seems to be a topic of real discussion this year, which is very exciting, because there’s so many islands in Scotland. So, we need to ensure that dementia care is also accessible and equitable on those islands as well as on the mainland.
Adam Smith:
I’ve read so many of those discussions before where they look at that. We need to bring Hannah in to look at the economic arguments, because they argue, oh yeah, that you can do things for large groups of people, but not for small groups when you’ve really got so much money. Money is always the excuse, isn’t it?
Dr Jodi Watt:
Yes. So, this is where a lot of my personal interest comes in, because I’m all about the small groups that people are normally like, but the big group, the big group is fine, but I’m interested in the smaller group.
Adam Smith:
Brilliant. Thank you, Jodi. And last but not least, Ajantha.
Ajantha Abey:
Yeah, I guess in terms of professional highlights, similar to some of the answers from earlier, I got to do a lot of travelling to different conferences this year as my final year of my PhD. So, I went to quite a few earlier in the year. I really enjoyed AD/PD in Gothenburg in particular. It was a really cool conference. I got to meet a lot of really interesting people and was even able to go later in the year to the U.S. to visit some of the labs and some people who I met, which is really nice of them to have and show me around, which is really cool.
And then while I was travelling around the U.S., I met some friends there as well. I was also there for the Quad Ball World Cup, Quad Ball, which previously used to be called Quidditch, which if you’re unfamiliar, look it up, it’s great but that was really fun. I got to see to my friends from back home in Australia there as well. My brother was on the Australian team, so that was really fun to watch him playing. This is not getting more into the personal highlights I guess as well.
Adam Smith:
Did you get Victor Krum’s autograph?
Ajantha Abey:
That’s the dream.
Adam Smith:
Sorry, I wasn’t marketing, but I’ve been to watch it, because they play it on the universe fields in Oxford. Though they weren’t where I’m at, I’ve been to watch a few times before. So, what you, you were talking, you we’re going to add to that then? Sorry, I interrupted.
Ajantha Abey:
Yeah, my big personal highlight for the year really is that for the last several years, my partner and I have really been playing the two-body problem in that at the start of 2020. So pre-COVID 2020, she started her PhD in Sydney in psychology, and two months later, I got my offer to come to do a PhD at Oxford. And so, we’ve been doing the longest of long distances for the last couple of years, about 17,000 kilometers, also during COVID, which was an interesting time. But this year, so halfway through the year, she finished her PhD submitted and she’s moved over here. So now back and living together, so that’s a big, exciting moment for us and that’s quite a highlight for me.
Adam Smith:
Brilliant. And how’s that going? It’s being in one place.
Ajantha Abey:
No. It’s quite exciting really. It’s just like all the incidental interactions that you miss, all the hanging out at home. We are not really doing anything together, but you still are together. It’s quite nice.
Adam Smith:
Brilliant. I’m glad it’s a success. Well, what an amazing 2023. You’ve all had such brilliant years. I mean obviously, there’s those highs and lows that everybody’s talked about, which I think we’ve come to expect in academia. I don’t know if I should add mine. We haven’t got time to add all mine, but certainly, I think Dementia Research has been refunded for the next six years. Five, six years is a good thing. It means I’ve still got a job and you can still keep listening to our podcast. That was a good highlight. And just, I mean generally speaking, the kind of collaborations that we continue to forge and the opportunity to work with so many different people and attend conference events, I love that. It’s so dynamic, which is what I love most about my job is we get this opportunity to just do fun cool stuff, and we’ve got some more fun stuff. Look out for our app in the new year. I’m not going to say much more than that now. Brilliant. Well, it’s time for one of these.
Okay, are you ready? It’s time to take a break and move on to the first part of our festive quiz. This podcast is going to be two hours long, if we take two hours long doing this. So, we can do this pretty quickly. We’re going to have five questions. The first five, I’ve got a bit of a sciency Christmas theme and you’re going to indicate that you are ready to answer by saying your name as quickly as you can. So, I was going to say fingers on buzzers, but that doesn’t quite work. Get ready. Are you ready? Question one, what is more common name for frozen water often seen during…
Dr Jodi Watt:
Jodi.
Adam Smith:
Go Jodi.
Dr Jodi Watt:
Ice.
Adam Smith:
I’m going to take snow or ice. I was about to say, it often seen in colder climates and at Christmas, but there you go.
Dr Connor Richardson:
At Newcastle right now.
Adam Smith:
Oh, really? It’s snowing in Newcastle.
Dr Connor Richardson:
Oh, yeah.
Adam Smith:
Question two, what is the name of the process plants used to make food, which is essential for Christmas trees.
Ajantha Abey:
AJ.
Adam Smith:
AJ.
Ajantha Abey:
Photosynthesis.
Adam Smith:
Correct. Well done. You got a point for you. Question three, true or false? Randy has red noses due to rich network of blood vessels.
Dr Clarissa Giebel:
Clarissa.
Adam Smith:
Go Clarissa.
Dr Clarissa Giebel:
No.
Adam Smith:
I’m afraid that’s incorrect. Would anybody else like to go?
Dr Anna Volkmer:
Anna.
Adam Smith:
Oh, Anna. I mean there’s only one other option, right?
Dr Anna Volkmer:
True.
Adam Smith:
I didn’t read this through. Correct. Well done. Okay, question four. What do we call scientists who study weather like predicting white Christmases?
Dr Clarissa Giebel:
Clarissa.
Ajantha Abey:
AJ.
Dr Clarissa Giebel:
Meteorologist.
Adam Smith:
Clarissa. Yeah, meteorologist. Well done. That was very close, AJ. And question five, last one in this round, what is the term for the shortest day of the year which occurs around Christmas time?
Dr Connor Richardson:
Connor.
Adam Smith:
Connor.
Dr Connor Richardson:
Winter solstice.
Adam Smith:
Correct. Well done. So, at the end of our first round of questions, Ajantha, Connor, Clarissa, Anna, and Jodi all have one point each.
Dr Clarissa Giebel:
What’s the prize for the best, for the most points at the end of this, by the way?
Adam Smith:
I’m going to surprise you at the end. You’re going to be surprised. It might be something you already have, but you’ll get another one. Brilliant. Thank you so much. So halfway scores, all even-stevens. So that’s enough of that. We talked earlier about our personal highlights. What I want to ask you now is what are the big discoveries or exciting themes that have emerged more generally from your research fields? Ajantha, you went last time. You can go first this time.
Ajantha Abey:
I mean, it’s hard to go past the two big drug announcements that came out for Alzheimer’s earlier this year. I guess that’s kind of maybe some way, some sense everyone’s highlight, because we’re all in the same broader field. So maybe I touch on those briefly.
Adam Smith:
[inaudible 00:25:12]Ajantha Abey:
Yeah, of course. And that’s absolutely huge news, I think, for the field, no matter sort of where you stand on them, just any kind of breakthroughs, both scientific and regulatory, I think, is really exciting, but maybe a bit more specific to disease mechanisms then. I think it’s really interesting how we’re seeing a massive sort of proliferation in looking at targets, looking at pathways beyond just tau and amyloid, these different proteins that accumulate in the disease. And we’re looking a lot more at things like glia and inflammation, a lot more at things like lipids. There’s a huge amount of research at the moment that seems to be going into looking at the role differently to play in disease, both in Alzheimer’s and in Parkinson’s disease, which is really cool, and also beyond the sort of disease mechanisms front. All the stuff in biomarkers, I think, is really, really exciting. And I’ve written a little bit about that this year, but I think both those fronts, there’s a lot going on just beyond sort of headline drug discovery type things. And I think they all bode really well for the future as well.
Adam Smith:
Which talks well, doesn’t it? Because still quite a lot of those amyloid, tau, well, amyloid particularly sceptics that we see at conferences. So, it’s good that there’s breadth of research going on because I think everybody agrees it’s probably not going to be one thing. It’s going to be this combination of factors. Thank you.
Ajantha Abey:
Yeah, it speaks to that importance like diversity, both within researchers but also in what we research, I think.
Adam Smith:
Exactly. Thank you. What about in your field, Jodi?
Dr Jodi Watt:
Yeah, so I think you’ve hit on some very interesting points there. I think for me, I struggle a wee bit with… I’m very excited about these drugs, but I struggle a wee bit with the accessibility aspect of them and that is a huge problem and a huge overarching question. So for me with drug repurposing, which or if anyone watching doesn’t know, is essentially taking drugs that are already clinically approved and therefore their safety profile, things like that, are known and seeing if they have any utility in dementia, which would save us millions upon millions, because we wouldn’t have to start the whole process from the beginning and would also lead us to the clinic more quickly. So, for me, this is a really, really exciting avenue for development, because it’s potentially more equitable and more inclusive. So yeah, I’m a bit more excited about that than I am about the new drugs currently.
Adam Smith:
I’ve come across various trials over the years that have repurposed particular drugs, but I’ve never, I have to say usually kind of at the point that they’re trying to recruit people and there’s a lot of talk at the start, but then I’ve never followed them through long enough to see whether they’ve actually gone on. I’m assuming that they didn’t because there hasn’t been some announcement about, oh this new blood pressure medication is something we should give to everybody to prevent or to deal with it. Are there any realistic, exciting prospects that we’ve found in the last year from drug repurposing?
Dr Jodi Watt:
That’s a good question. I think one of those things about drug repurposing as well is that I would say that a year isn’t the greatest timeframe over which to work. I understand that this is a retrospective fund 2020.
Adam Smith:
Obviously, yeah.
Dr Jodi Watt:
But I think I’m quite excited about my own work as I’ve said, but I’m at a stage where it requires a lot of validation at the moment. So, I wouldn’t want to talk too much about that at this point in time. But I think there is exciting development as we have more in the way of analytical approaches to it and we have huge data sets. It’s like I work in UK Biobank, which is half a million people. My analysis is done in half a million people, which is huge numbers compared to a lot of research in the field. I think that sort of thing and that sort of access level is quite exciting when it comes to the purposes of doing things like drug repurposing.
Adam Smith:
And we’ve heard a lot this year about AI tools being applied to those data sets to… and the MND- SMART trial from Edinburgh being employed on other diseases, that slightly new dynamic approach to delivering on repurposed drug studies to practically test and help with. So that’s exciting stuff. Thank you, Jodi. What about you, Connor?
Dr Connor Richardson:
Well, I can probably very smoothly segue from that, because my fellowship is in looking kind of repurposing drugs with anti-inflammatories. And my two highlights were going to be the grown amount of AI, which I’m still a bit of a AI machine learning sceptic in the vast majority of cases that it seems to be implemented in dementia research at the minute, bit I think it’s a really fascinating debate and you can get into some very spicy debates between hardcore statisticians and hardcore computer scientists who come and analyse and questions in completely different ways and it gets quite spicy, but that’s what kind of makes it interesting, but yeah, also more huge data sets come and become more available.
You’ve got Dementia Platforms UK, which are recruiting more and more data sets into their platform, Biobank. We just got access at Newcastle to the, can’t remember all the word, but CPRD, the clinical research data link, which is a huge database of primary care records. So that really helps you sort of tie in together these things. Often things which are you want to look at altogether, but you can’t. So, you can either look at medication in one data set and clinical records in one and MRI scans and another, and they’re all disjointed over different areas. I think now you’re starting to see these bigger data sets sort of merge their, really merge their data together so you can do some much more exciting analysis with them.
Adam Smith:
Those advancements in technology are really making a difference in that space, aren’t they, as well. I doubt anybody stepped, because I don’t think anybody here works in biomarkers particularly, but so we should throw in there that the advancements in blood biomarkers are clearly a hot topic from, I mean there’ve been a hot topic for many years, but it feels like we’re closer than ever, particularly in the UK with this new large grant that the charities have come together to actually implement a blood-based biomarker dementia test in the NHS within five years and test it in a real world. Thank you very much. Anna.
Dr Anna Volkmer:
So, I was lucky enough to be the podcast host for the MAB discussion that we’ve recorded. I do think that all the kind of advances in disease modifying drugs are super exciting and enormous, not just because of what they are, but also for people themselves and their family members because of the hope it creates. And because I guess with my clinical hat on, I have been hearing people ask me for decades when we are going to get anything that is anywhere near a cure. And suddenly, this has provided a lot more hope and money and although I think there’s a huge accessibility issue, I completely agree. What I’ve also noticed is there’s lots more money that’s available to do research into access. So, in terms of, I’m quite excited by the work that I’m lucky enough to collaborate with Clarissa on big piece of work, looking at access to diagnosis, access to care for people who have dementia, but who are from more diverse backgrounds.
I think that’s something that’s really and looking more narrowly in speech and language therapy and dementia, it’s certainly a conversation more people have been having. So not just can a person get a diagnosis but can a person access act as an intervention. And if so, what adaptations do we need to make? So, we are doing lots more projects looking at adaptations of interventions into different languages but also cultures. We just recently hosted a bit of a conference, a better conversations conference that particularly focused on that topic, and I think that’s super exciting given I’ve grown up in London, I myself, a little bit of a mishmash of nationalities. I feel that’s really exciting to be able to be talking about that in terms of real life and how we can nationalise that into day-to-day research and care.
Adam Smith:
It is an exciting time and I loved; I really enjoyed the lecanemab donanemab podcast. We did get a little bit of traction on social media questioning some of the discussion that went on there, which I quite enjoyed. It was deliberately provocative, but I think Sir John and Kath and Nick did an amazing job of preventing a very balanced picture of where we’re at with that, which is yes, this is complicated to implement. Yes, they’re not immediately going to be available. And yes, not everybody’s going to sue someone, but it is progress. And you’re right, it’s brought so much extra money and focus that prospect because also the knock-on effect has been that everybody realises that you can’t prescribe that drug if we haven’t got good enough diagnostics. So, there’s also been a lot of research now, money invested in improving diagnostics, which hasn’t just been blood biomarkers, it’s been about different scanning techniques, cognitive online, cognitive testing, which has then brought us more towards prevention. So, I agree. Thank you very much.
Dr Anna Volkmer:
And actually, I think there’s also realise it’s not a fait accompli. It’s not going to completely cure everything. I think we also need; the care has to be funded alongside. So, I think it’s actually just drawn more money overall to the sector. Great.
Adam Smith:
You made a brilliant point in that podcast about if you prolong people’s lives by taking this drug, but they don’t get better, they stay the same, then that means people are going to need care for longer and the kind of interventions they’re going to need are going to need it for longer as well. So, I worry that researching, that is going to be lag behind. We’ll get the treatment and the drug and then everybody will go, oh, wait a second, but hopefully not. And you are amazing in finding that [inaudible 00:35:46].
Dr Anna Volkmer:
Thank you.
Adam Smith:
Hannah, what’s going on in the world of health economics?
Hannah Hussain:
So, for me, my research is it’s into health-related quality of life. So, like I said, PROMs, patient-reported outcomes. So, I’ve got kind of two fields that I’m interested in, which is PROMs, but also how economic evaluations take place. And just a segue from the point you just made about care, that’s the kind of thing that I’m interested in terms of the research developments that have been happening potentially over the last year, but a little bit longer in terms of what are being considered as costs as part of an economic evaluation. So typically, we have a very direct costing system, and we know with people with living with dementia, there’s a lot of informal care that’s given. There’s a lot of spillover effects and these costs, but of course benefits from treatments aren’t necessarily being considered. So, there’s this kind of change in attitude, approach, and research that’s slowly happening.
There’s a lot more interest in spillover effects. That’s the term we tend to use in health economics and just how we can consider these benefits and of course costs to informal carers. So yeah, that’s the kind of thing that I’m hoping to see more of and I’m looking forward to seeing more of.
Adam Smith:
And we keep hearing, don’t we? About the kind of, it just seems to be one review after another into the costs of social care and how we can better deliver social care in an affordable way. The problem is I’m not sure that there is such thing as an affordable way to deliver social care. It’s expensive and you either have it or you don’t. I mean, does there feel like there’s some hope on the horizon for that?
Hannah Hussain:
Yeah, I certainly think so, less in terms of social care directly, but more in terms of how we are considering the perspective of an informal carer. If we were costing the care, the time, the energy, the well-being of the carer when we do economic evaluations, the NHS would essentially just be bankrupt. They’re such a central part of dementia care. So, I think there’s this kind of change in attitude towards how we can include those things in economic evaluation, but it’s really hard to change how things have always been done and consider how we want them to be comparable going forward. So, it’s kind of like a move towards a more extensive quality that’s the quality adjusted life year and how we can extend that. That’s happening now.
Adam Smith:
Which gets me to thinking actually, because just reminded me that a theme that’s come up on the podcast throughout the year has been implementation or lack of implementation or implementation science, or what more can we better do to implement the things that we create that we know work. And that economic evaluation seems to be more important than ever to build on that case for why this should be done, to make the argument that this will… It shouldn’t come down to money, did it? But if you can prove that not just about the cost, that it improves the quality of life, that then contributes overall to well-being and the money side of things. Things will become more implementable. Thank you very much, Hannah. Clarissa, you’ve been very patient. Well done.
Dr Clarissa Giebel:
All right.
Adam Smith:
What’s hot in the inequalities research field?
Dr Clarissa Giebel:
What’s hot?
Adam Smith:
Games, I hear games are the way of the future.
Dr Clarissa Giebel:
Yes, but I want to pick up on Anna’s point of social care because that’s really what I do. I look at social care and inequalities in that, and I find it positive, really positive that there’s been a much bigger investment now in social care research, at least in the past year, not necessarily unfortunately in social care from the government, but in research. So, we have a research programme for social care for example, that’s launched. We’ve got a new research support service that’s based in Lancaster, which is solely focusing on social care, and I’m fortunate enough to be part of that. And there’s lots of other parts that supports investment into how we can improve the lives of vulnerable people and their families from a social care point of view in terms of research measures. But then you’re right, how do we translate that effectively when the social care landscape isn’t really well funded?
So, the game may offer a low-cost intervention perhaps, but that’s just, obviously, I’m biassed. I love the game, but what we need to do is find, I suppose, low-cost interventions to help work around the limited budget within social care to help people access care more equitably. It’s really tough and it’s really frustrating as an academic when we suddenly find things that work. I don’t know dementia can navigate as admiral nurses, etc. But then there’s no more investment because we kind of know they would reduce inequalities and improve care, but how far can we go? We can go to policymakers, decision makers, but will it actually be taken up? So, I think that’s something we all have to work with that sector organisations a lot with to kind of raise awareness.
Adam Smith:
I agree, I mean so the NIHR this last year has invested lots in social care, hasn’t it? It’s kind of renewed contracts with the school for social care. It’s got lots of new services. I don’t know how that plays out elsewhere in the world. I mean, tell us in the podcast comments, how well-funded is social care research, where in the world you are? I think in the UK, it’s definitely gone up the agenda and it’s getting a good slice of funding. It’s not all money going into fundamental science. Some people might think, but yeah. Thank you, Clarissa. And the point about creating lots of small low cost, I think it’s that knowledge, isn’t it? It’s not necessarily that you need a great new expensive, multi-million pound service to deliver interventions, but having small things that people can do day in, day out and evidence to back them up and then a way to train people to make them aware of it is it could actually be more impactful quickly.
Dr Clarissa Giebel:
And a lot of buy-in and support from the managers of all those organisations, that’s kind of key to implementing them then.
Adam Smith:
I have a personal bit of a bug about this. I think over the last 10 years, we’ve become a little bit too dependent upon relying on digital methods to reach people. So, when I used to work on joint dementia research, you kind of fell back on that. Twitter became the new way of telling everybody everything. I think that old school method of being face-to-face in person, going meeting people, talking to them, presenting something in front of them, standing, arranging meetings, I think some of that’s been lost a little bit, I think. And I think some of these things we’d like staff in healthcare systems to do. We need to actually get out of our chairs and our offices and our back bedrooms wherever we are and actually go out and talk to people. And I think things will stick more personal for you. Does anybody disagree or anything to add to that?
Dr Connor Richardson:
I was just going to say Adam at the Dem Comm meeting yesterday, there was a session on impact and there’s somewhat, I can’t remember his name now, but he’s based at Newcastle, and he has links on the NIHR website. So, you can find him, and he has a sort of framework for, I think, called it impact analysis and it kind of breaks it down into who are your stakeholders of your research and in what ways do they care about your success and does your success matter to them? And he kind of breaks it down into I’m going to send an email a week to this person and say this specifically and then try and get an in-person meeting with that person and try and build those kind of just like what you’re saying, not just throw it out into the internet and hope someone cares, actually think about who you want to do and do in a sort of systematic planned way.
Adam Smith:
There’s a reason why people like drug companies still have drug reps that face-to-face contact, which going out there is still incredibly powerful. And I think in implementing some of these interventions, we could make more use of that. The problem is it’s time, isn’t it? It’s time now to get out and spend time talking to people, but I think if we can build that in as part of our plans, we might have more success. Well, that was all very serious, wasn’t it? But thank you so much everybody. Is there anything we think we might miss? There’s going to be people listening going on now. Did you not talk about this big thing that happened in 2023? I think we’ve talked about biomarkers; we’ve talked about new drugs; we’ve talked about care. Any other hot things that we’ve missed? We talked about technology. There’s so much technology going on now.
Dr Connor Richardson:
I think we mentioned earlier the sort of like, you have this interesting divide now between the amyloid sceptics and the sort of amyloid pushers almost. There was an interesting phrase used at AAIC this year with the, I think it was the NIH redefinition of dementia, and they use the phrase, if amyloid can be detected in the brain, then it’s a move towards saying that that person will get dementia. It’s not a question if amyloids in your brain, it’s inevitable. Well, it’s not. I mean there’s loads of studies to say that people live with amyloid and their brain’s perfectly healthy until they die.
Adam Smith:
I suppose some studies have showed presence of amyloid, haven’t they for people?
Dr Connor Richardson:
Yeah, but it’s an interesting sort of shift in how people are thinking about the disease.
Adam Smith:
Maybe it’s if you live long enough, is it a case that if you live long enough, you will eventually definitely, but some people might have to live until they’re in their late 90s or something.
Dr Connor Richardson:
Yeah, I think that’s what they were getting at, but it’s an interesting sort of philosophical almost, because you can argue if you lived to 200, you would get dementia inevitably.
Adam Smith:
There was an interesting thing, so yesterday I went to the IDEAL study. So, the IDEAL studies, this programme run by Linda Clare out of Exeter that’s been going on for many, many years. I think it was one of the first big studies funded by the ESRC out of the Prime Minister’s challenge on dementia, which is 2012, 2013, but it’s delivered so much over the course many years. And one of the things that they reported yesterday in their overall review of findings was that people, and this probably isn’t the news we want to hear, but people who didn’t worry too much about Alzheimer’s, when they got a diagnosis, they did think about it as a natural kind of part of, well that’s just getting old, actually had better outcomes than people who knew all about it and thought about their disease and their dementia and called it Alzheimer’s disease and were very aware of it more that they had better outcomes, the people who didn’t worry about it kind of thing, as opposed to the well-informed people that went on and knew all about the disease, which I thought was astounding.
We spent a lot of time trying to make sure that there’s increased awareness, aren’t we?
Dr Jodi Watt:
I don’t think that that’s all that surprising though, because when you consider surgical outcomes, for example, positive attitude going into surgery shows that you have better outcome at least psychologically. So, I guess it’s just a variant of that, right?
Adam Smith:
Yeah. Well, I didn’t know that about surgery, but yeah, and if you head to our YouTube channel, by the time you are watching or listening this, those recordings from Linda Clare, presenting the outcomes of the IDEAL study will be on our YouTube channel. As part of our new push, we’d like to help you share your research. So, if you’ve done a webinar, you’re holding an event in the UK, talk to us. We’d love to share your content on our website and get more people watching it. Thank you very much everybody. I think it’s time for one of these and then we’re going to get back to the second half of our quiz. Just to recap, after round one, Ajantha, Connor, Clarissa, Anna, and Jodi are all on one point each. And Hannah, poor Hannah was the only one not to get questioned in round one. You need to be quicker Hannah. Okay, are you ready for round two? There are no science elements to this. These are purely Christmas questions, but they might be a couple a little bit harder. Question number six, what are the two most popular names for Santa Claus?
Dr Anna Volkmer:
Anna. Santa and Father Christmas.
Adam Smith:
Incorrect. Anybody else?
Dr Connor Richardson:
Connor. Kris Kringle.
Adam Smith:
And?
Dr Connor Richardson:
Oh, I thought it may count for two.
Adam Smith:
Think you’ve about too long. Sorry.
Dr Clarissa Giebel:
I can give you German one, but that won’t count.
Adam Smith:
Go Clarissa, do you want to guess? Two most common names for Santa Claus that obviously aren’t Santa Claus.
Dr Anna Volkmer:
Anna. Can I have another go? Anna.
Adam Smith:
Well, Clarissa’s got another go, Clarissa said-
Dr Clarissa Giebel:
Well for us, it’s Weihnachtsmann and Christkind, which is baby Jesus, basically.
Dr Anna Volkmer:
One more though. There’s one more.
Adam Smith:
Baby Jesus isn’t Santa Claus.
Dr Clarissa Giebel:
Yes, he or she or it is our culture.
Adam Smith:
What? So, in Germany, Santa Claus and baby Jesus are the same person that’s exactly-
Dr Clarissa Giebel:
Well, Santa Claus comes on the 6th of December, so your boot will be filled with chocolates and presents and then we have little baby Jesus flying as an angel through the window giving you the presents if you’re a little kid.
Adam Smith:
How did I not know that?
Dr Anna Volkmer:
It depends what part of Germany you’re in because in East Germany, they didn’t get the little Jesus, baby Jesus coming because they were communists, and they weren’t allowed to have religion. So, they got Saint Nicholas and so Saint Nick and Weihnachtsmann.
Adam Smith:
Okay, do you know what? You’ve all had too many guesses. I’m going to give Hannah a go.
Hannah Hussain:
Not Father Christmas is one of them.
Adam Smith:
You should’ve had clues. Somebody’s already said one of them correctly. It wasn’t Father Christmas.
Hannah Hussain:
I don’t know. I don’t…
Adam Smith:
Okay, I’m just going to say this. The answer that I’ve got from my book is Kris Kringle, which somebody mentioned and Saint Nicholas, but nobody mentioned them together. Nobody said both the… Okay, no points that time around.
Dr Connor Richardson:
Didn’t we get a half a point each for getting them individually?
Adam Smith:
Who got Saint Nicholas? Anna. Okay so Anna you get a-
Hannah Hussain:
And me 6th of December.
Adam Smith:
You’re trying to get half as well and Connor as well. I feel like I’m getting conned here. Question number seven, what well-known Christmas Carol became the first ever song broadcast in space in 1965? Anybody?
Ajantha Abey:
AJ.
Adam Smith:
AJ.
Ajantha Abey:
It’s a complete guess. Was it Silent Night?
Adam Smith:
No, sorry.
Ajantha Abey:
Carol or Christmas song?
Adam Smith:
Christmas carol.
Dr Anna Volkmer:
What’s the difference between a carol and a song?
Adam Smith:
Well, a song might be like The Pogue’s song.
Dr Anna Volkmer:
Okay. All right. Anna. Jingle Bells.
Adam Smith:
Anna, correct. Jingle Bells. It was Jingle Bells was the first ever song broadcast in first ever Christmas song broadcast in space in 1965. Anna, that puts you one point in the lead now with two and a half points as we move into question number eight, which you’re all going to know this. Are you ready? Which Christmas movie featured a boy named Kevin accidentally left behind? [inaudible 00:52:20]
Dr Jodi Watt:
I was clearly first. I was very clearly first. It’s Home Alone, but I’m taking it because I was very clearly first, and I was saying Home Alone.
Adam Smith:
And I was struggling to read and look at you all at the same time. My eyes can only be in one place at once. Okay, so now just to recap on scores. Anna is on two and a half, Jodi is on two. Connor and Clarissa are on one and a half, Ajantha’s on one, and Hannah is still up there at the bottom of the pack with zero points. Okay, are we ready? Number nine, which country, I only read the first-
Dr Anna Volkmer:
Germany.
Adam Smith:
Germany is correct. Well done.
Dr Jodi Watt:
What was the question?
Adam Smith:
The question was which country? And that’s all I said before I stopped. Which country started the tradition of putting up a Christmas tree? And it was Germany. Anna storming ahead now with three and a half points. In fact, with only one question left, nobody can beat her. So, we are just playing for pride now. Question number 10, in the song, The Twelve Days of Christmas, which is given on the seventh day?
Dr Jodi Watt:
Jodi.
Adam Smith:
Jodi.
Dr Jodi Watt:
Seven swans are swimming.
Adam Smith:
Well done. It is seven swans are swimming. So that’s the end of our Christmas festive quiz. This could become a new Christmas tradition because I quite enjoyed that. So, in last place with no points because just not quick enough. They’re going to be really big. Hannah, her saying.
Hannah Hussain:
I’m okay with that.
Adam Smith:
Okay, but you look incredibly festive. You’ve got to go watch the video version of this podcast on our YouTube channel. See Hannah’s amazing Christmas jumper. Show us your Christmas jumper, Hannah.
Hannah Hussain:
It’s got like a dog on it.
Adam Smith:
Oh, wow.
Hannah Hussain:
Pretty cute.
Adam Smith:
I think Connor’s got one of those dogs. You got one of those dogs, Connor?
Dr Connor Richardson:
Not quite those dogs, [inaudible 00:54:29]
Adam Smith:
Okay, so Hannah came last with zero points. Next behind it is Ajantha with one point, but it was very impressive one point because he got the hard one. Well done. Next is Connor and Clarissa sharing equal third place with one and a half points. Then came Jodi who came in very late with the last, all your points came the last minute there, Jodi on three. But the winner of our Christmas quiz is Dr. Anna Volkmer. Well done, Anna. You win a Dementia Researcher mug. You’ve already got one of these.
Dr Connor Richardson:
She should have points deducted for dressing for Halloween.
Adam Smith:
Yeah, we ought to just address that, didn’t we? Just because I know we talked about it before we started recording, but anybody who’s watching will be looking and going, why is Hannah wearing a bat on her head? Is this another German tradition of bats related to Christmas in Germany?
Dr Anna Volkmer:
No, this is just me challenging everyone’s thinking as all research do being a good researcher.
Adam Smith:
It’s not, is it? That was just still there from your kids haven’t put it away for Halloween. Thank you very much. Well, that was lots of fun, but it’s time that we got on and got to the last part of the show. So, we’re running over time. We’re going to keep this nice and quick. What I’m going to do in this last segment is ask everybody a really simple one, which is what are the most excited about for the coming year ahead, which is of course, 2024. You can pick on a personal one, professional one, whichever you prefer. And I’m going to go to Hannah first. Hannah, what are you most looking forward to? More holidays?
Hannah Hussain:
No, no, no, not yet. Submitting my PhD.
Adam Smith:
Is that coming this year?
Hannah Hussain:
It’s coming April 2024.
Adam Smith:
Are you not jinxing that by saying right now you’re definitely going to do that?
Hannah Hussain:
No, I’m confident. I’m looking forward to it. I’m just going at it with a positive mindset and manifesting that I get it submitted. So yeah, that, and then viva.
Adam Smith:
And then holidays I hope to celebrate.
Hannah Hussain:
Exactly and then holidays. Yeah.
Adam Smith:
We should say, is this a busy time of year for you? You are also a jobbing pharmacist, right? I mean you work in a pharmacy and dispense medication to people.
Hannah Hussain:
Yeah, so I was locuming quite a bit, but now I’ve eased off a little bit just because I want to get my PhD submitted in time. So, I’m more focusing on this aspect before going back into community pharmacy, but it’s been a bit tough. I mean there’s been a lot of closures of community pharmacies, so workload and demand has increased on the others, but yeah.
Adam Smith:
And shortage of medication as well, right? I mean you must have to deal with a lot of people are a bit frustrated, so I know I’ve stood in the queue and heard people talking here. We haven’t got that.
Hannah Hussain:
Yeah, there’s a lot of shortages that’s been ongoing for a long time, trying to find alternatives. People do get angry, but just people, guys, it’s not our fault. We’re trying our best.
Adam Smith:
I understand. Well, thank you for all you do Hannah, and really good look with that writing. We’re looking forward to reading some more of your blogs to hear how you have a good relationship with that. Clarissa, why don’t I come to you next?
Dr Clarissa Giebel:
Ooh, so much going on. I’m very excited to go back to Colombia in January, especially when it’s absolutely ice cold here and wintry, and I’m looking forward to having some nice sunshine there. And just finishing up our ESRC study to look at mental health of older adults and people with dementia. So that’s been three years in the making, and I think we’re all really excited to kind of celebrate, having done something, having done a pilot intervention in a really hard to reach rural area of Colombia where often our collaborators weren’t allowed to go because of flaring up gang violence. So, it’s completely new learning for us, but we are really happy that we’ve completed it.
Adam Smith:
And learning that we can employ in the rural parts of Scotland as well, possibly.
Dr Clarissa Giebel:
Yeah, absolutely.
Adam Smith:
Which leads me nicely to Jodi. What do you do-
Dr Jodi Watt:
Yeah, I mean I hope that there is both easier access and less gang violence than rural Colombia.
Adam Smith:
I don’t know. I hear those… They’ve reintroduced wolves into Scotland, haven’t they? Isn’t that a thing?
Dr Jodi Watt:
Wolves?
Adam Smith:
Wolves, yeah.
Dr Jodi Watt:
I’m pretty sure there’s wolves, I think. But yeah, so I’m going to go for a personal one. I’m getting civilly partnered in May, so that’s exciting. I have to make a wedding dress during the week between Christmas and New Year. It is not fun.
Adam Smith:
Wait, that’s a really bad time. Is that post or pre-mint pies?
Dr Jodi Watt:
Well, I’m not a mint pie kind of people. It’s mainly chocolate that will be my downfall. My Yule log is legendary, so.
Adam Smith:
Maybe eat all that before the dress. That’s really good. Congratulations. Are we going to learn more about that in the blog? Is that something you’ll talk about in your blog?
Dr Jodi Watt:
I don’t know. Maybe there’s a way to talk about how making a dress. Tell me about [inaudible 01:00:04] vice versa.
Adam Smith:
Well, they did it. Rebecca Williams talked about the seamstress in one of her blogs.
Dr Jodi Watt:
I really liked that, and it completely stole an idea I had, so that’s good.
Adam Smith:
We should give a shout out to all of our bloggers who, of course, couldn’t be here today. Sam Moxon was supposed to be, but he had an urgent dental appointment. Yvonne Couch, Kamar Ameen-Ali. Who else am I missing? Gaia Brezzo. We’ve got a brand new Emily Spencer as well, who’s just joined us who was also going to be here, but she literally just had a baby a few days ago, but she’s going to write for us throughout her maternity journey to talk about the time before what it’s like being on maternity leave and then coming back to work afterwards. So, we’re really excited to have those new blogs. Connor.
Dr Connor Richardson:
Well, I think this year is really exciting because I know I’m fully funded this year, so I know I’ve got…
Adam Smith:
So, the most exciting part is not having to [inaudible 01:00:59]
Dr Connor Richardson:
Yeah, I’ve finally got a long stretch of funding where I’m like, “Oh, I don’t have to worry about that.”
Adam Smith:
And do you need money to do stuff? Because I know that often, we’ve had blogs this year talking about fellowships, how you get your fellowship and then you think, great, I don’t have to do anything. And then you realise you haven’t actually gotten enough money to do things, so you still need to apply for more money, but is it a bit different with you because it’s data?
Dr Connor Richardson:
So, I don’t really need costs to kind of do data analysis. So yeah, I am quite lucky in that. So, I think the reason I’ve got quite a nice bit of money is because I only need to fund my salary. So as long as I’ve got my laptop and my data, I can do what I want. But yeah, so the other half of my work, apart from the fellowship is working with, I do neuropathology data analysis with then Steve Wharton in Sheffield and he does the brain stuff. So, I don’t need to worry about getting money for those costs. Someone else deals with that. So yeah, it should be nice not having to worry about projects and stuff.
Adam Smith:
Thank you very much, Connor. Who haven’t I gone to yet? Ajantha, I haven’t asked you that question, have I?
Ajantha Abey:
Mine is going to be quite quick because exactly the same as Hannah. I’m also planning to submit my PhD thesis next year also, hopefully in April. I’m really going for April because that way, it’ll be before my birthday, so it’ll be quite nice. But yes, it’s most what I’m looking forward to, submitting that, kind of all done and then taking a bit of a break.
Adam Smith:
Brilliant. Well, good. Also, good luck. And if any of our listeners have any top tips or are about to submit their PhD themselves, we’ve got lots of blogs and podcasts and other things talking about PhD writing. So do have a look at those and if you’ve got any top tips, post them in the comments because I’m sure Hannah and Ajantha would love to hear those. And then last, but not lease, our quiz winner. Anna, what are you most looking forward to?
Dr Anna Volkmer:
Oh, lots. But I am going to Australia for the International Aphasia Rehab Conference, which I’ve been invited to as an invited speaker, not quite a keynote, but an invited speaker. So that’s pretty awesome. And that’s in Brisbane in Queensland, so that’s pretty awesome. And while we are on the theme, you were talking about people going on maternity leave and still doing research. I’m quite looking forward to me, I’ve got two kids, the last one starting secondary school in September, which makes them more independent, so I never then have to… Currently, I organise all my meetings around having to pick him up quite often, so once he’s at secondary school, I can just work and he can come home.
Adam Smith:
No, you’re not supposed to say just work. You’re supposed to say, I can go for a run when I like.
Dr Anna Volkmer:
Well, no, I can do that also, but what I don’t have to do is have conversations with other parents at the school gates, which is always painful and annoying. So, I get to actually do this.
Adam Smith:
This is adding into that claim you made on your bio, which is you are the scariest speech and language therapist, which I’ve never believed from knowing you. I would never believe that, but maybe there’s a side of you I’ve ever seen and you’re just nice to me.
Dr Anna Volkmer:
Maybe exactly that, maybe.
Adam Smith:
Wonderful. Thank you very much.
Dr Anna Volkmer:
Thank you.
Adam Smith:
Thank you very much. I should add to our own, so from a Dementia Research perspective, we’ve got a new community space coming. We’re changing the way some of the website works. So, you won’t need to log in anymore. We’re going to have our app is going to come along as well and we’ve got some exciting new podcast series built into that. And I’m excited to also be getting out some conferences next year. I missed quite a few this year, but I’m going to… Definitely, you’ll be able to see me if you want to come and talk to us about being on the show and things at AD/PD and some of the AIC events as well. And Alzheimer Europe, again, Alzheimer Disease International, we’ve got that conference this year as well.
And some of the working with our brilliant charities, of course, Race Against Dementia. We’ve got a new funding call open at the moment, so we’re doing a live stream with them shortly. We’ve got the ECR retreat from Alzheimer’s Society, which is advertised right now running again in June, I think. We’ve got the ARUK conference in March as well. So, lots going on, but I think it’s time we got round to the last bit of the show.
Well, the last bit of the show is essentially me just thanking everybody because we runway over time as everything we do, but I’m going to allow for it because it’s a Christmas special. All that is remains is for me to wish all of you a brilliant festive season and to thank my incredible guests, Clarissa, Hannah, Anna, Connor, Ajantha, and Jodi. And, of course, you’ll find all their blogs on our website and that of our other bloggers as well. They write for us on the Dementia Researcher website every month. You can also hear them reading their blogs in your favourite podcast app and on YouTube because they all do these wonderful narrations, which I really enjoy. I love hearing people read their blog. It’s kind of really brings them to life. So, if you’re not already a listener, go look for Dementia Researcher, the blogs in your favourite podcast app. Thank you so much all of you, for all the contributions you make to our website and for joining us today. I’m Adam Smith and you’ve been listening to the Dementia Researcher podcast. Happy holidays everybody.
Dr Clarissa Giebel:
Thanks.
Dr Connor Richardson:
Bye.
Voice Over:
The Dementia Researcher podcast was brought to you by University College London with generous funding from the UK National Institute for Health Research, Alzheimer’s Research UK, Alzheimer’s Society, Alzheimer’s Association, and Race Against Dementia. Please subscribe, leave us a review, and register on our website for full access to all our great resources. Dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk.
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The views and opinions expressed by the host and guests in this podcast represent those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect those of UCL or Dementia Researcher