Podcast – 2024 End of Year Reflections

Adam Smith:

Hello, and welcome to the festive edition of the Dementia Researcher Podcast. Today, we bring together some of our regular bloggers to hear about their years, their fields, and what they have planned for 2025. Unscripted, and with some unexpected questions, so who knows what will happen?

Hello. I'm Adam Smith. It's a delight to be ho-ho hosting this podcast. Did you like that?

This is our third year of this kind of show. It's now becoming a firm tradition in our schedule. Joining me today, we have Dr. Jodi Watt, Dr. Sam Moxon, Dr. Anna Volkmer, Dr. Cliona Farrell, Dr. Connor Richardson, and me. You'll recognise those because as I said, they're all our regular bloggers. They're going to talk to us today about their year that's just gone by, what's been happening for them, what's happening in their field. Then we're going to talk a little bit about next year, and we're going to have some festive questions as well.

But let's start with some introductions. For those that don't know, our blogs, we publish about two to three blogs every week. Our bloggers talk about everything from research topics to their lives, their careers, and everything in between. All those blogs also have their own podcast. If you're not already subscribed to that, go look for Dementia Researcher, The Blogs, because it has its own podcast screen where you can hear our wonderful bloggers narrate their blogs. I prefer listening much rather than reading, so do go check those out. But in the meantime, let's do some introductions for those that don't know them. I'm going to start with Jodi. Introduce yourself, Jodi.

Dr Jodi Watt:

As Adam said, I'm Dr. Jodi Watt. I work as a postdoc at the University of Glasgow. I currently work on drug repurposing for dementia, and our dementia researcher, I tend to focus on inequities in dementia research.

Adam Smith:

Thank you, Jodi. Let's come on to Sam next.

Dr Sam Moxon:

Yeah, hi, everyone. I'm Sam. I'm also a regular blogger. I tend to blog a bit about research, a bit about travel research tips, but also about food and diet, and the impact on health. We've also got a podcast series called Food for Thought, where we talk about the implications of food and diet on dementia. You catch me in between roles now.

I've been a research fellow for eight years now, but now I'm transitioning into running a spin out company that should come out of the university. I'll talk a bit about that later on as well, so a few exciting updates for later on.

Adam Smith:

You came on the webinar to talk. We did a webinar.

Dr Sam Moxon:

Yeah.

Adam Smith:

Can you talk about that as well? You've written some blogs for us about that. We might talk about food later, but are you a vegan now?

Dr Sam Moxon:

Yeah, yeah. I've been for two and a half years.

Adam Smith:

What does a vegan Christmas dinner look like?

Dr Sam Moxon:

It's basically the same. It's just rather than turkey, you have a vegan alternative. We still have all the roast potatoes, the stuffing, the carrots, the turnips, not the turnips, the parsnips, the sprouts, all the usual stuff.

The difficult thing is finding a dessert. We tend to either have Christmas pudding, which is usually good, or we make something.

Adam Smith:

It looks like Jodi's got a suggestion.

Dr Jodi Watt:

I am also vegan, not to be that guy. But I have the greatest Yule log recipe going.

Dr Sam Moxon:

Oh, I'd like that.

Dr Jodi Watt:

A hit with everyone. Can circulate that if you like.

Dr Sam Moxon:

Yeah, my mum makes the minced pies for us vegans. My great uncle was born in Vienna, and we have this amazing recipe for Viennese minced pies with Viennese pastry. She's made those vegans. We have those as well, which are really good. But yeah, it's much the same. It's just a dessert that can sometimes be a bit tricky. I might chase you for that Yule log recipe.

Dr Jodi Watt:

Yeah, sure.

Adam Smith:

Of course, now I've said that it's obvious for like 90% of the Christmas dinner is vegetables, right?

Dr Sam Moxon:

Yeah.

Adam Smith:

What about Yorkshire pudding? Where do you stand on Yorkshire puddings?

Dr Sam Moxon:

It doesn't go on a Christmas dinner. I'm a Yorkshire man, so I can check this. I'm from down there myself.

Adam Smith:

We need a show of hands here. If you're listening, that won't work. You have to watch the video version. Anna, Yorkshire puddings?

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Oh, yes.

Adam Smith:

Yep. Connor?

Dr Connor Richardson:

Very, yes.

Adam Smith:

Yep. Cliona?

Dr Clíona Farrell:

I'm Irish, so Yorkshire puddings are actually quite new to me since I moved here. But I'm the third vegan on the call. I've found some really nice roasts in London that have vegan Yorkshire puddings on them. I'm a convert, I would say.

Adam Smith:

Jodi?

Dr Jodi Watt:

My partners from Yorkshire, and he is very team Yorkshire pudding, generally.

Dr Sam Moxon:

Team Yorkshire, really? Ooh, controversial.

Adam Smith:

I think the Yorkshire puddings win in that little vote. My grandma, I don't know if this is just a thing for my family or a Yorkshire thing, but you used to get served a Yorkshire pudding as a starter. It was a really big square one that was cooked in its own pan and would get dished up as before you'd then have your meat, and your vegetables.

Dr Connor Richardson:

This debate almost destroyed a family Christmas a few years ago.

Adam Smith:

We need to know that story, Connor.

Dr Connor Richardson:

One year, my mum was hosting Christmas dinner, and for the past 10 years I've cooked Christmas dinner, but she had a new partner. She was trying to show off. Me and my sister were getting very concerned that there was no Yorkshire pudding preparation going on. We were like, "What's the track? Where are the Yorkshire puddings?"

Then all of a sudden, after 30 years of knowing this woman who I thought would be my mother, was like, "You don't have Yorkshire puddings on a Christmas dinner." I was like, "I think you'll find we do."

Yeah, me and my sister almost had a massive fight with my mum on Christmas day because we're like, "Who is this woman? Why are you being this way?" We demand Yorkshire pudding now.

Adam Smith:

"This man that has changed you." It's all her partner's fault. They have to be made, right? You can't go buying any frozen business. I never buy frozen.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

No, I never buy frozen. Oh, no. They don't taste right.

Adam Smith:

Completely agree. I'm glad we've set the Yorkshire pudding debate to hand, right? But Anna, let's do your introduction now.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Hello, I'm Dr. Anna Volkmer. I'm a speech and language therapist, and a researcher at UCL. I've blogged for dementia research for some time, not so much recently. But most of my blogs are about speech language and communication, which is in relation to people with dementia. But I've also blogged a lot about, I guess, lots of things like juggling life. This year, one of my blogs got picked up, and I got a mention in a Guardian magazine article as a result of this. Have I told you that, Adam?

It was blogging about being a parent and being a researcher. I got an approach by a journalist who said, "I found your blog about being a parent, and a researcher on NIHR Dementia Researcher. Then she asked me several comments about how I manage my life. Then she quoted me in a Guardian article. I can send you a photo of it. It's basically with lots of other busy women, and how being a mum, and I think I got quoted as saying something to the effect of, "When I'm writing, I just don't check my emails or phone messages just so I can get on with writing." That was essentially my massive moment.

Adam Smith:

Very cool. Funnily enough, because, of course, not with us this evening, but our regular listeners will know that Emily Spencer, also a PhD student at UCL, writes, has been writing for us during pregnancy, then during maternity leave, and now returning back for work. I know she won an award as well for her blogs on the same topic, some UCL award for her blogs on that site.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

That's pretty cool.

Adam Smith:

Wonderful. Congratulations, Anna. You've written lots. Every time I refer back all about how to navigate NIHR funding, and things like that, it's always your blogs that come up. Because you've written right through from being a PhD student to now supervising your own students, and everything else. You've got a wealth of blogs.

In fact, I think you might have nearly 50 blogs on our website over the five years you've been writing for us. Thank you very much, Anna. Cliona? Cliona's been writing for us for ... Is that nearly six months now?

Dr Clíona Farrell:

Yeah, maybe half a year or so. Yeah, my name's Cliona Farrell. I'm a recent PhD graduate from UCL where I am now doing a postdoctoral fellowship as well. Yeah, I've been blogging as Adam said, for about half a year, so far because I was coming to the end of my PhD as I started blogging. I really focused on writing advice, and how to get a PhD as well.

My work is focused on Alzheimer's disease in people who have Down syndrome, but from a more preclinical research perspective. I work with a lot of human post-mortem brain tissue, and study proteomics and transcriptomics in that system.

Adam Smith:

That's very cool. I submitted a journal article yesterday when I was looking through the list of special editions. Down syndrome and dementia were one of their current special issues for Alzheimer's and dementia.

Dr Clíona Farrell:

Yeah, Alzheimer's and Dementia Journal, they had a callout at the moment. I actually got asked to review an article for them.

Adam Smith:

We didn't submit for that, but I sit spot that in case you hadn't heard. Thank you, Cliona.

Last but not least, our very own Connor. Hello, Connor. For those who are watching the video podcast version, would you mind popping your nose on for us just to give ... I should describe for those that are listening, of course, you can head over to YouTube where we have a video version of this podcast, and to describe my wonderful guest, Anna and Cliona are both wearing wonderfully festive jumpers. Sam is in front of the twinkliest Christmas tree I've ever seen. Jodi and I have the traditional red and white Santa hat. Connor is dressed as Rudolph. Are you Rudolph, or are you Dancer, Prancer, or Blitzen?

Dr Connor Richardson:

I'm meant to be Rudolph. But as you can see, my Poundland Rudolph nose does not want to play ball. It's mentally light up, but my low skirt ... I like the little ears.

Adam Smith:

You could actually take away the antlers, and just wear that with the little ears.

Dr Connor Richardson:

The antlers are actually really tall, and they keep knocking against that light, which is both my dining room table spot. I'm trying to be very careful not to cause collateral damage in my house for the bit.

Adam Smith:

I should let you introduce yourself, shouldn't I?

Dr Connor Richardson:

Yeah. I'm Connor. I'm an epidemiologist at Newcastle University. I've been writing for the Dementia Researcher blogs for about two years on everything from kind of epidemiology, data science, to a lot of research culture, research careers, and anything that piques my interest at any given time.

Yeah, my research is mainly focused on population studies, dementia prevention, and risk reduction.

Adam Smith:

My favourite blog that you wrote this year was the one where you basically wrote that you did two that were matched up. One way, you did lots and lots of focused effort to get a promotion. Then the next, when you didn't get that promotion, sadly.

Dr Connor Richardson:

I did not.

Adam Smith:

Then you applied a little while later but didn't decide to apply until about 10 minutes before the deadline and threw something together in 10 minutes and got promoted. Which just give the worst impression that basically, don't prepare for anything. Just everything should be done with about 10 minutes notice.

Dr Connor Richardson:

I am cautious now not to give that message because I kind of repackaged the old one in 10 minutes before, so I did not write it from scratch. I do not want to give people that advice. Do not write promotion applications from scratch.

Adam Smith:

People that gave you that promotion didn't hopefully read that blog, and go, "What? He did ..."

Actually, that's an interesting question. Obviously, we know that people read Anna's blogs because The Guardian apparently read her blogs. Do people reach out, contact you, and reflect on what you've said?

Jodi, was that a nod?

Dr Jodi Watt:

Yeah, my friend's mum in the state saw my blog post about how to have your first Christmas with someone in your family having a diagnosis of dementia. Apparently, it made its way around all her pals in the state. I think that one worked way far on Facebook and things.

Adam Smith:

That's nice. Anybody else?

Dr Sam Moxon:

I think I've become Talk TV’s, go-to person to call now because of mine.

Adam Smith:

I'm not sure if that's a good thing.

Dr Sam Moxon:

Usually, they call when I'm on my way to somewhere on holiday as well. Now, whenever I go on holiday, I pack a blazer in my laptop just in case. They always seem to call when I'm on my way to the lake or something like that.

Adam Smith:

You know what those runners are like. As soon as you get on their list of somebody that will make yourself available to talk on any kind of topic, that's it. Anything that comes up, you'll become their go-to person.

But that's good. Shows you that general all-round knowledge. In fact, if you're watching the video version of this, I'm going to find a little montage, and cut that in right now. We'll see Sam doing his best serious.

Dr Sam Moxon:

Usually from a different cottage every time as well.

Adam Smith:

Will you go for it no matter what it is? Even if it's something you've know nothing about.

Dr Sam Moxon:

Yeah, you've always got a couple of hours to read about it. Why not?

Adam Smith:

I always give an opinion, it'll be fine.

Dr Sam Moxon:

It's usually about any new drugs, so I can sort of handle that.

Adam Smith:

We know that not everything we read in the news or see on television is right. That's all of our brilliant guests.

For those that don't know me, I'm Adam Smith. I'm the programme director for Dementia Researcher. It's my job to try and provide blogs, resources, and things that hopefully help inspire young people to think about dementia research as a career option, and to also provide resources, stories, tools, and disseminate things that hopefully help keep you in dementia research once you are there.

I spend a lot of time on social media, events, talking to people, and just trying to keep on top of everything that's going on, and working out what would be useful. Because we know increasingly people are stepping away from some social media, so our newsletter, website, and things like that become more important than ever to keep everybody up to date. Yeah. That's the kind of stuff I do.

But let's just take a break there, and when we come back, we're going to talk about the last year.

Okay. We're back. I hope you enjoyed that musical interval. Now, we're going to go round in reverse order, and talk about people's highlights from the you, which means this time, we're going to start with Connor.

Connor, other than taking up rugby, which I know you've done in the last 12 months. I don't know that there are quite a few pictures on his social media of him looking rather dashing in a rugby shirt, and a little muddy. What else have you done this year, Connor?

Dr Connor Richardson:

Less unorthodox things than that. But yeah, like I mentioned, I got promoted this year, which was very nice. I've got senior in front of my job title, which feels very scary, and undeserved.

Adam Smith:

Not at all.

Dr Connor Richardson:

I don't feel knowledge enough to be senior. But yeah, just mostly what I've done is develop stuff alongside the DEM-COMM fellowship. This year, we started developing special interest groups within DEM-COMM, which is a fellowship which was awarded to about more than 50 people in the NIHR Applied Research Collaborations. We do any discipline that falls within applied dementia research.

I've been working alongside two groups. They're focused on prevention, and another focused-on data science. That's been really interesting. I think the big thing this year in my field has been the 2024 [inaudible 00:18:01]

Adam Smith:

Wait, I didn't ask you about that yet. Don't jump ahead. You ruin all my questions. I've got a plan.

Dr Connor Richardson:

Oh, I'm sorry.

Adam Smith:

Obviously, I hate to put people on the spot because the answer might be no. But have you had granted this year? Have you done some publishing stuff? Have you made some new discoveries, something that's surprised you? You've got your hands on some new data, didn't you?

Dr Connor Richardson:

Oh, I did, yeah, actually. Yeah, I got my hands on CPRD data this year. I always forget the acronym, but it's Clinical Practise Research Datalink, which is a ginormous data source of NHS records. I haven't actually published much this year. I think I've only had one publication this year. But the learning curve of getting to use real big data of millions of people has been huge. But very, very fun.

Adam Smith:

That's like when you walk into the candy shop then, and you just can't decide what you're going to buy, because you suddenly got so much to go at. Is that kind of how it is?

Dr Connor Richardson:

A little bit. But it's like if all my training's been in as a kind of statistician using pre-designed cohort studies, everything's lovely, neat, and tidy. People start the study at the same time, they end the study at the same time, and they're followed up at the same time. But obviously in real life with health records, people are being born, and coming into their practise, leaving their practise, starting treatment and ending treatment, and getting lost in between, and interest in accidents such as people being diagnosed with dementia at age six, which you have to sort of clean. People who end up being 240 years old, because they haven't been registered as dead. It's a fun, messy, messy playground.

Adam Smith:

Have you seen What We Do in the Shadows? You haven't secretly found where Laszlo's living hidden?

Dr Connor Richardson:

Unfortunately, not. It would be much more interesting if I did.

Adam Smith:

But I get what you mean, because working with these large assets, as you just said, real life is messy. GPs and health professionals are busy, and there are system changes all the time. It requires for that data to come out good. That was really bad use of English. There wasn't good to come out good, but I take your point. You have to work out what's going wrong with all that before you can make use of it.

Dr Connor Richardson:

Oh, yeah. I think it took us months, months, months, and months to be able to do the more basic stuff. That was a lot of me getting frustrated, and going to make coffees, going like, "Why can't I figure out a percentage of this data?" But yeah, it was awful for the first few months, but really fun once you kind of got the hang of it.

Adam Smith:

We'll learn more about that when we come to talking about next year, and your big thing. Let's bring this back to being a little bit festive, shall we? I'm going to ask you, if you could give one piece of research equipment or a piece of funding as a gift to your lab like a Christmas gift, what are you going to give them? What's it going to be, and why?

Dr Connor Richardson:

Actually, it's quite easy because one of the things we're using these big studies like CPRD, and biobank is you suddenly learn how expensive they are. I think a personal licence to use it for one study is over 20, 25 grand or something. I think we have a site licence for a year for a 100,000 pound. If I could give in perpetuity licence to CPRD, I'll be saying that would be it.

Adam Smith:

Don't you think it's kind of mad that an NIHR is part of the UK NHS ecosystem funding stream has to then pay another part of the health service money to use data, which we should have? Come on. Somebody who's watching should fix that. We shouldn't even need to pay for this. This should be available for the great good.

Dr Connor Richardson:

You've got to pay for bolt-ons like a phone contract.

Adam Smith:

You need extra data, literally [inaudible 00:22:46]

Dr Connor Richardson:

If you get your primary care records, but if you also want to know like, I don't know, some other answer or some other kind of hospital admissions ...

Adam Smith:

Patient history or something like that.

Dr Connor Richardson:

You have to pay extra bolt-ons.

Adam Smith:

All that data, it's so frustrating. Like Ancestry, I started doing some at ancestry.com this year. It's great. You can get a subscription. You think, "Right, I've paid, I should get access now." They say, "Yeah, but if you want pictures of birth certificates, you have to pay extra. If you'd like to access war records, yeah, that's another three pounds a year."

I thought you were going to say faster computers because working with all that data I know, but maybe you've already got super speedy computers.

Dr Connor Richardson:

I've probably got the fastest computer in my lab, so we'll just keep it that way.

Adam Smith:

Cliona, if you could tell us first, what would you give your lab for Christmas? What would they really like? Let's answer that question first.

Dr Clíona Farrell:

Interestingly, this year, we were planning to do a Secret Santa, and instead when it was Black Friday, we bought a lab Hotel Chocolate velvetizer. Basically, have been having hot chocolates every day, which I would recommend as a lab investment. In terms of an uplift, that was a great gift for the lab.

Adam Smith:

All the tenors that you would've spent, you all chucked in on a velvetizer. What is a velvetizer? I think I might need one of these. What's a velvetizer?

Dr Clíona Farrell:

It's basically a very small little hot chocolate maker. You just put in milk and chocolate. It froths and whisks it all up, and melts like chocolate chips into the hot chocolate. It's really delicious. You got a great way to spend a 3:00, 4:00 of the afternoon with the lab.

Adam Smith:

Actual chocolate, so not like powder or anything, you put actual chocolate.

Dr Clíona Farrell:

You can go powder. But we've been having a bougie month, and we've gone with the original Hotel Chocolat chocolate chips.

Adam Smith:

Wow. I've got a picture in my head now of some 300 quid machine in the corner of the lab that nobody's allowed to touch.

Dr Clíona Farrell:

They're 60, 70 quid of Black Friday. But definitely a good investment for morale at this time of year.

Adam Smith:

Has anybody else got a velvetizer?

Dr Connor Richardson:

I've got one on the bench.

Adam Smith:

If you wouldn't mind while we're talking to Cliona, picking one up for us, and coming back. What's going on this year?

Dr Clíona Farrell:

I'm just looking at Connor coming back.

Adam Smith:

Connor, it's like a little a joke.

Dr Sam Moxon:

I was just going to say, if you've got an espresso machine, you can use the milk frother on the espresso machine to do it as well.

Dr Connor Richardson:

I feel very like the Price is Right now. Like, "Uh-huh."

Adam Smith:

60 quid.

Dr Clíona Farrell:

[inaudible 00:25:30] listening, this is the way to keep morale high.

Adam Smith:

I think so. How to keep everybody still staying in your lab, it's by a velvetizer. I will put a link to one on there. If any of you would like to gift a velvetizer to Jodi, Sam, Anna or myself, we'll happily accept one of those.

Dr Sam Moxon:

How highly, everyone.

Adam Smith:

Yeah. Maybe Cliona just needs a supply of really good chocolate to go in there as well.

Dr Clíona Farrell:

Or I just need to get a referral code. I keep telling everyone about it. Hotel Chocolat should really be paying me the promotion I'm doing here.

Adam Smith:

Donuts, if you like. Send us your referral code, and we'll pop that out. Cliona, tell us about your year.

Dr Clíona Farrell:

My year has been a year of change. I started the year by submitting my PhD thesis, and finished my PhD, did my viva in the spring, and transitioned to a postdoc role in the same lab with some new supervisors, and on a new project. It was definitely a nice transition throughout the year to go from student to doctor and have a bit more responsibility.

Yeah. I really have enjoyed starting to explore a new project as well. One of the highlights of my year is that I got to go to the US to do a research trip to Southern California, which was both academically and personally very fun, because it was in the very sunny weather as it started to get very cold in London. Yeah, that was really great.

Adam Smith:

Congratulations, first of all, of course, on getting that. How did you celebrate? Did you go big, and do your family know what you do? Because we did a podcast on Vivas a couple of weeks ago, and everybody came back, and said their parents are convinced, our grandparents are convinced that they're brain surgeons or they do something like they're a doctor with brains. But I guess you really are a doctor with brains, right?

Dr Clíona Farrell:

Yeah, it's true. When I describe people that I work with, kind of post with their brains, you always get people being like, "Oh, my God. You just have a full brain that you have." But I think actually doing the blogs has been a great way to convey a bit more what I actually do and give people an idea. For the viva, my family came online and watched me do my final seminar before I went into the viva. Which is really nice, and I don't think they understood most of it, but it was I think nice for them to see how it all came together.

Yeah, I definitely get the odd question of like, "Oh, if you're a neurosurgeon, can you do this?" You've just steered people back along the right path. Then I had a big conference in June a few months after my viva. It was in Rome, so I took a holiday after that as a way of celebrating the PhD, which was very nice.

Adam Smith:

That's nice. When we publish your blogs, of course, nobody ever comments. Comments are open, but very few people ever comment on them except for parents and grandparents. They're the most commented. Whenever we post, suddenly we'll get these pop-ups on LinkedIn or on our website going, "We're so proud of you. You do so ... Well done. Keep up the good work." It's nearly always family members who pop.

Which, of course, is a comment to anybody other there. You're always welcome to post a comment against any of our blogs. We love it when you do that. Whether it's helpful, unhelpful, or you've got a question, we can always get you answers to those. But also, as well, grandparents are always welcome to drop in. But that's really nice.

Rome as well. I was at a multi-neural disease conference, ALS conference a couple of weeks ago, and some PhD student's mum was there. When I was kind of, when you don't know, you changed somebody at their poster, and somebody tried to set their poster. I said, "Oh, sorry, this person wants to take your picture with your post." I'm like, "Oh, no worries. It's just my mum." "Hello, nice to meet you. You must be so proud of your daughter." "Oh, yes." I have this whole conversation with the mum about that poster.

You didn't take your mum to the conference with you?

Dr Clíona Farrell:

No, not this time. Maybe I'll offer that as an option next time. But yeah, I'm curious, was that mum like a scientist or just joined at the conference?

Adam Smith:

No, just somebody was interested. I guess maybe they tied it up with a holiday, and then somehow managed to sneak in. I don't know. Nobody was really checking badges so much at this conference, I have to say. But at the same time, they had Comic Con. In the same venue was their Comic Con, and that was mad. It was awesome.

The Comic Con was open to anybody to walk in. We're wandering around Comic Con in our lunch hours. All these people in costumes. We just came as the squares from the conference. It's brilliant.

Thank you, Cliona. Congratulations on a brilliant year. Your blogs have been great as well. I think anybody who is doing a PhD right now, do check out Cliona's blogs because they've been really helpful, I think in that talking about that transition period, and what you're going through. I think your blog particularly on whether you should stay in the same lab or whether you should go somewhere else, was particularly pertinent. That's a question that often comes up.

Anna let's come to you now. Because Anna retired from blogging this year. What do you call it when professors retire? What's that?

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Emeritus.

Adam Smith:

She's an Emeritus blogger for us, but still some time podcast host.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Yeah. I kind of miss it though. I really regret. I miss it, because I really enjoy blogging. The money's always good more than that pain. What can I say?

But it's also, I think it's what Cliona was just saying about having that moment of that time to be reflexive and try and explain your research. I think it's actually really valuable. I get other moments like that. But I really enjoy the writing moment of trying to put it into plain English. It's really valuable, to share the pains, the bumps, and the humps.

Adam Smith:

You don't really have a platform for that, otherwise, do you?

Dr Anna Volkmer:

No.

Adam Smith:

In our community, of course, community.dementiaresearch.nihr.ac.uk, if you haven't got our app already, I started writing because I realised, I didn't have enough interest to go to all the trouble to start my own blog. But I also wanted to share a little bit about what I thought about certain things, and didn't really have a platform to do it. I do write blogs occasionally for the website.

But usually where I can see a gap or when I ask our bloggers, "Will somebody write about this?" And everybody goes, "No," I don't know anything about that. Then I'll usually jump in. But yeah, sorry, I can understand where you're coming from. With that aside, what's your year being like? What have you been up to?

Dr Anna Volkmer:

I was going to use the word busy, but everybody is busy. I think that's a terrible word to use. What have I been up to? I've been doing lots of things. I was thinking about a couple of important things that happened this year. Perhaps one of them is that I published a really big paper that I've been trying to publish for ages. I was, thank you, with 67 co-authors.

I know. It's a core outcome set for intervention research in primary progressive aphasia. The language-led dementia. I've presented the study at the International Conference on Frontotemporal Dementia. I got a platform presentation with the big wigs, the profs who talk about actual dementia trials in FDD. They have three, two dementia trialists, and then me talking about core outcome sets in speech therapy. Then another dementia doctor. Then we had a panel, and we all had to talk about how speech outcome measures and trial models. It felt very scary, very scary.

But it felt really important because somebody came up to me in the audience afterwards, somebody with lived experience, and they said, "Oh, I'm really glad that you talked about what it feels like." I was talking about outcomes around quality of life, communication, and relationships. They said it was really good not to just be talking about a cure that felt really far away, but also to be talking about something that felt closer, and real. That was very cool, very exciting.

Adam Smith:

It is. And 67 co-authors.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

I felt like I was organising a bunch of rowdy friends. It was quite a lot of work. In many ways, it's not an academic skill. It's just a kind of maybe like a parenting skill. It felt like I was trying to get my 11-year-old, and all his friends to actually do something at the same time together in Central London. It felt a bit chaotic, but we got it done.

Adam Smith:

It depends how, and you don't have to name names, of course, I wouldn't expect you to do that. But in any paper like that, I imagine, on a paper with six, seven people, there must be at least five people who you would think, "I'm never inviting you." Because those people insist on commenting every single time on the most pedantic of things. Then when you look back, they even are contradicting themselves from version 1 to version 21 that you're now on. That they've gone back to say what you said in the first version.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

You have to be really nice to them the whole way through. They worked with you again. But actually, there was nobody like me. There was definitely really [inaudible 00:36:17]

Adam Smith:

If you're on this paper, and you're listening right now, don't be that person. I hope you weren't invited.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Do you know what you're talking about, Adam? Totally. Bye.

Adam Smith:

That's great. You need to send us a link. Where can we find this paper for people who ...

Dr Anna Volkmer:

No, it's in Alzheimer's and Dementia, earlier this year. I can send you the link, absolutely. I'm very proud of it. I'll send you the link so you can ... The other ...

Adam Smith:

Tell us the name. Was it a big, long title? What was it?

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Not too big. It's COS-PPA, Core Outcome Set for Primary Progressive Aphasia. COS-PPA, it feels quite catchy, I think.

Adam Smith:

It does. Because it almost sounds like cosplay, PPA.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

No.

Adam Smith:

No? You weren't going for that.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Not really. That's the second time. I went to a conference. We ran an intensive conversation group. We called it a conversation camp. I did a talk about our conversation camp. After the talk, someone came up to me, and was like, "That sounds an awful lot like a concentration camp, Anna." I said, "Oh."

Dr Jodi Watt:

I thought that you were going to say conversion camp, which is also ...

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Oh no, that would've been perhaps even worse. I don't know. They're all horrific.

Adam Smith:

We want camp conversation either.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

We're back on the drawing board on that one.

Adam Smith:

Yeah, maybe not conversation camp. Conversation corner.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

It's tricky. Corner sounds a bit like we're not really doing much. We want to sound like ... But it's therapy, isn't it? At this point, we're saying intensive group for conversation therapy. We've gone really boring and tedious just to make it ...

Adam Smith:

If anybody has a snappier typo, I'm just on a postcard. Send those to Anna.Volkmer@ucl.ac.uk.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Anna.Volkmer.15@ucl.ac.uk. Please, I really genuinely need that advice.

Adam Smith:

You are always one of the busiest people I know. Whenever I speak to speech and language therapy, we've a funny little ... Not a funny, because there's nothing funny. We've got a little following them on speech and language therapists on our website, on our social media, and on our podcasts. But entirely down to you. Everybody's always heard of you. That's the thing.

Oh, Deanna does that. You've got fingers in ... Is there a paper being published that hasn't had your name on it in the lab somewhere?

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Bearing in mind that there's about 12 speech therapists in the whole of the UK, not 12, I'm exaggerating. We are a tiny community. It's like living in a very small village if you're a speech therapist. It's not a genuine ...

Adam Smith:

I think you're too way too modest there. Thank you, Anna.

Cool. If I keep this going, we're going to be here in an hour and a half's time. I promise after this round, next round will be sped up. But I'm going to throw in another Christmas question, which we'll come to.

The most memorable gift you ever received as a child. Sam, what was the most memorable Christmas gift you ever got as a child?

Dr Sam Moxon:

Electric drum kit.

Adam Smith:

An electric drum kit?

Dr Sam Moxon:

Yeah.

Adam Smith:

Is that plugged into the PlayStation?

Dr Sam Moxon:

No, a full drum kit. It was all just made out of rubber pads, and that kind of stuff. I always wanted to play drums. I was always told it was too loud. To be able to get one of those ...

Adam Smith:

Works with that. Have you still got it?

Dr Sam Moxon:

No, I've got to do away about a year ago, because I'm going to get a new one probably when we do move somewhere else. But yeah, it was getting old, starting to stop working, and some of the pads weren't working so it was time to get rid of it.

Adam Smith:

I love that you were still using it. You need that. What about you, Anna? Did you have a most memorable ever gift?

Dr Anna Volkmer:

No, my sister's one. She got a Barbie horse when we were like six years old. It's remained the stuff of legends. She asked for it, and then she didn't want it. Then it's become one of that when you go, "Oh, but you remember the Barbie horse that you didn't really want, so make sure you ask for a present you really want." It's like a metaphor in our family.

Adam Smith:

Yeah. She's still reminded of it every Christmas.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

She's 42.

Adam Smith:

"Sure, I'll get you a Barbie horse."

Dr Anna Volkmer:

My sister is a 42-year-old judge, an actual judgy judge, like a real judgy one. Yes, we remind her of it all the time to bring her down a peg or two. Very helpful.

Adam Smith:

What about you, Jodi?

Dr Jodi Watt:

Good question. I come from a family of full chaotic gifts. Yeah, many, all weird. For my 18th birthday, my mum and dad got me a hi-vis jacket just to give you some idea of what we're dealing with. In terms of more normal, shall we say, I adore that approach, but probably also in the musical instrument realm.

When I was about five, I got my piano. Am I good at music? No. Maybe one day.

Adam Smith:

There are a few musical ones. Mine was, I remember getting a record player that had flashing lights in the corner of the speakers that would flash in time with the music. I think there's a picture of me somewhere in a Hong Kong fewy dressing gown on a living room floor somewhere looking like I'm doing DJ with some flashing lights behind me. I don't know how old I would've been. I don't know, probably seven.

I look quite like that now. Anybody else? Anybody iconically on anything that jumps to mind?

Dr Connor Richardson:

I remember when I was obsessed with, to me it seemed I want to say life-size, but it wasn't life-size because I was seven. But it was this robot thing. I was obsessed with it in the shop. But then one year, it was just in my house at Christmas. I was just like, "Oh, my God." I think I thought it was a real-life robot, but it was just some veneer, more control to move around the house. I think I was expected to be like C3-PO or something.

In a month or two, I was really disappointed with it because I was like, "This is not like a robot companion that I'll go on adventures with."

Adam Smith:

I love that some of the devices we have around the home would've been amazing back then. I'm not going to say her name because she'll talk to me. But the little device that sits in the corner, you mention their name, then they can do things like turn lights on, start the vacuum cleaner, or send text message.

How mad would that have been when at Christmas when you were 10, if you could have gotten that? That would've been the nearest thing to a robot. It'd be like having Hal in your house. Something that can talk to you. Cliona, I need to let you answer because everybody else has.

Dr Clíona Farrell:

When I was probably around seven or eight, I was obsessed with getting a dog, but that was never actually on the cards for my family. One year, I got this ginormous stuffed dog that was probably the size of me at the time. It was a flat one that you could lie on top of. Yeah, I remember thinking it was the coolest thing I've ever seen.

I'm pretty sure it has since been graduated. My sister is a primary school teacher. It got graduated to her classroom. I would never want to touch that again. But at the time, it was the best thing ever. Yeah, I used to lie in it and watch TV all the time.

Adam Smith:

Awesome. Big soft toys. Of course, it's all Jelly cats now, isn't it? Has anybody bought a Jelly cat either for themselves or somebody else this Christmas?

Dr Jodi Watt:

What are you talking about? I don't know what's a Jelly cat.

Adam Smith:

You don't know what Jelly cats are? Do they have those in Scotland? You must.

Dr Jodi Watt:

I guess it's a Scotland problem. I think that I'm a grown adult that doesn't have too much.

Adam Smith:

I have Jelly cats. They're the softest of plush toys. But they also come in shapes. You can get vegetables which are Jelly cats.

Dr Jodi Watt:

I was going to say, are they all cats? But you just told me there's vegetables.

Adam Smith:

No, no, no, no. Jelly cats the make, isn't it? Am I saying it wrong? They are Jelly cats.

Dr Sam Moxon:

Yeah, they're Jelly cats. Yeah, yeah.

Dr Connor Richardson:

Are Jelly cats different to Squishmallows?

Dr Sam Moxon:

Yeah.

Dr Connor Richardson:

My niece is obsessed with Squish mallows. That's all I know.

Adam Smith:

Jodi, I know what I'm going to send you for Christmas now. Let's come on to hear about your year. Thank you for being so patient as well.

Dr Jodi Watt:

All good. Yeah, my year, academic or personal, because I think my personal year has over shown that. I got married to my best friend, so living the dream.

Adam Smith:

Are they still your best friend?

Dr Jodi Watt:

Yes, I adore the human being that I married. Definitely recommend doing that if you're going to marry someone like them. That's a good start, I feel.

But yeah, I spent the first half of the year planning a lot of that. I know that this is obviously an academic context-focused thing, but as per my blogs, I do think it's important to remember work-life balance. That's something that I've been highly prioritising this year, not just because I was getting married, because burnout is very real. That was what I was not looking for this year.

Academically, I have also identified, hopefully, an exciting drug for potential repurposing, which would be really cool. It's very early days. But I did a study in biobank, a drug-wide association study. Essentially used every person in biobank to try and identify a drug. Identified one, and then we gave it to Cardiff. Cardiff took it to the Sale data bank. They did it in about 1.3 million people and find the same drug. I'm not going to spoil what the drug is because the paper's coming out, and everyone can read it.

Adam Smith:

But that's exciting, super exciting. Is that where, now you want these adaptive clinical trials, which I know they've been using motor neuron disease? Coming from that MND conference, they were all about adaptive, rapid trial turnaround, and short testing, move on for repurposed drugs for ALS, and MND. Is that the kind of place where you'd want that to go next?

Dr Jodi Watt:

I think it's the ideal approach, not to be sceptical of the pre-clinical context. I've worked there before. I understand the nuance, and the gain that you get from that context. However, development of drugs takes a lot of time. You know that I did a blog post this year about the inequity of drug development. The drugs that we are seeing coming to market that are new are very exciting, but they're not necessarily the most equitable.

For example, unless it's changed, I haven't been super up to date with the news recently for lots of overwhelming reasons. But unless it's changed, the NHS didn't approve it. We are looking down the barrel of the situation where people might not get these drugs that are being lauded as being fantastic, but what we do have is a knowledge base of drugs that might be worthwhile reconsidering.

If we do that, then we get to skip a bit of the clinical trial development pipeline. We understand how they work. We're not stuck in the like, we have to take them through stage three, and we have to try them on the different population. I.e. if they've not been used in dementia before, we need to try them in a dementia population.

But we're talking about drugs that are understood clinically. We know things like a lot of these drugs were originally tested in white men. But because they've had clinical use, we have anecdotal and circumstantial evidence from being used in the NHS about how they work in other populations. They actually are really equitable. It's a really good way to be like, "Okay, our dementia research is, for example, quite white," but we understand how it works in non-white populations. We actually have a good evidence based so we can understand how the drug works in these groups, and further work in those groups, which is one thing we were missing significantly.

Adam Smith:

We've talked about that trial design a couple of times this year. I think we did a podcast with Siddharthan Chandran, and the week again back at the start of the year, talking about the MND-SMART trial that does exactly that. They have these kinds of big eye and machine learning datasets that's churning out which, providing a short list of potential drugs. But then because they're already approved as being safe, they can then more rapidly test these in slightly smaller populations for shorter periods of time to measure impact. But then quickly stop, restart, and move on whether they're showing any effect.

It seems to be the way for repurposing trials now. That's what everybody's trying to do, isn't it?

Dr Jodi Watt:

I think you need to come at it from multiple directions. I think that's the most effective way to try and get towards something that is an effective treatment or ideally a cure.

Adam Smith:

Absolutely. Thank you, Jodi.

Okay, we've got one more person to get to, which is Sam to hear about Sam's year in the past. But we've reached the time in the show where we have to say goodbye to Anna, because Anna has a prior engagement. I've talked for far too long, and Anna has to go. All join us and say goodbye to Anna. Anna, thank you so much for joining.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Thank you for having me. I'm so sorry to leave. Merry Christmas everybody.

Adam Smith:

Thank you, Anna. Bye, Anna.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Bye.

Adam Smith:

Sam, yeah, I realise I missed you before. Sam, your year, what's been happening this year?

Dr Sam Moxon:

It's been one of those years where everything comes together at once. It's been quite a good year. We've had a couple of grants, had a couple of papers, and a couple of conferences. It's been really productive. We've managed to secure funding from a spin-out company from our research as well.

It's been one of those years where multiple angles, and projects have all come together at once. It's allowed us to apply for a couple of things. That's gone through really well. We're in a really strong position.

We've secured some funding to basically go to the next stage of regulation for a regenerative therapy for maxillofacial healing. We're now getting that ready to go to the FDA. Then the second grant was from Innovate UK to start asking spin our company. It's been a good year, which makes next year, how do we top it with next year, because it's been a really successful year for us. Yeah.

Adam Smith:

I loved your story. For everybody who's not seen Sam's podcast there, he threw me a real curved ball this year. We had Sam on the community doing a chat about innovation. I knew Sam works in 3D bioprinting with stem cells and lattice structures to attach stem cells to create 3D models of organoids and things, all kinds of clever brain stuff. I get him on to talk about his spin-out company expecting we're going to hear all about this.

He tells me how they're making a heat-proof material for Formula One cars.

Where did that come from? There's a whole story. If you don't understand why we go from that to that, go and watch that webinar. It's on our YouTube channel. But just to show that you're never quite sure where your research is going to take you in which direction that Sam is now a manufacturer of heat-proof products.

Dr Sam Moxon:

Yeah, that's the thing about material science. You never know where a particular material is going to take you. That's the exciting thing about it. I've been to a materials conference. I've seen some really strange things. People doing weird things with one material, and then another talk with someone doing something equally weird with the same material but completely different. Yeah, materials are weird is what I've learned. It's awesome.

Adam Smith:

You could do that, of course, with your data, Connor. Of course, your skills, and Jodi, you can take your skills. You could suddenly apply to any other data. We had somebody else on a webinar this year who talked about doing similar things to you, and then went to work for an insurance company. Hunted it and came back again. But take those data analytics tools and apply them differently.

Cliona, I'm not sure. How do you reapply your ... I wasn't leaving you out, I just didn't immediately come up with an example.

Dr Clíona Farrell:

I've come up with an example. I'll let you know. Currently, a lab-based scientist and stuck there for now.

Adam Smith:

There are other ways. Right. We're going to do this in a quick-fire terms, because I'm conscious of time, everybody's evenings, and all of our listeners. As much as you've been loving this, we'll take a little break now. When we come back, we're going to hear about our researchers' fields.

Okay. Welcome back to our festive podcast. We're going to start with Jodi this time. Who's going to tell us, Jodi, what is the hot topic in your field of research this year? What's been the big news?

Dr Jodi Watt:

I guess now I work in drug development, so I think it has been all the sort of hot topic drugs, and possible future drugs that you've seen a lot.

Adam Smith:

Anti-amyloids.

Dr Jodi Watt:

Yep, exactly. No, that's not what I do specifically as discussed. But I think it's very exciting. I think warrants the hype that's happening just now. Yeah.

Adam Smith:

Big news of drugs this year. The anti-amyloid therapies have been all in the news everywhere. Of course, good news and bad news in some cases where they've been approved by regulators, but not approved as being cost-effective. Then that was changed in Europe again recently. Of course, if you're in the US, you can get it too. You can have it here now if you're going to pay for it.

But a lot of debate around those medications. I gather, there's more on the horizon as well for 2025. Watch that space. Thanks, Jodi. Sam?

Dr Sam Moxon:

Yeah, at two. I'll be very quick with both. The first is at the conference I went to the other week in Boston. I got to see a guy called Roger Kamm talk, who I followed his work for years. He just makes blood brain barrier models. He's now got this system where he can basically screen drugs in vitro without having to use animals. I think that's going to be a big thing for dementia researchers, to be able to translate to human better inside the lab. That was a big one.

The other one is a guest I'd like to get onto our Food for Thought podcast, a guy called Dr. Dean Ornish, who proved that heart disease was a result of diet and could be reversed with diet. If you remember when we had Michael Greger on a few years ago, this study had just started to see if you could influence Alzheimer's disease with diet after diagnosis. The results were far better than anyone predicted. Actually, it seems like even after somebody's diagnosed, diet can still have an impact. I'd like to get them on and speak to them about that on podcast.

Adam Smith:

Yeah, do that. We definitely want to hear from them. Sorry, you mentioned a model that can allow you to ...

Dr Sam Moxon:

Yeah, it's like a microfluidic chip. You can basically compartmentalise different parts of the brain, create functional blood brain vasculature, and look at how drugs cross that to look at infiltration into the brain. It's really, really cool stuff.

Adam Smith:

That is awesome. That sounds like the thing to get into. Is that a new area?

Dr Clíona Farrell:

Yeah, I think both what Jodi and Sam have said was going to be part of mine. That's the new drugs are definitely bringing more excitement to the field. I think in the next coming years, there's going to be safer mechanisms for delivery of those drugs as well as newer, and better drugs hopefully coming around. But something different that's relevant to more of my work is that there is a really interesting study.

For a long time, the Alzheimer's disease field has known that APOE4 is a genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's disease. Then some new really big population studies this year showed that it's more of a risk factor than anyone knew before and could be considered its own genetic type of Alzheimer's disease. I think linking that then underlying biology, and why that is the case, I think that would be really interesting going forward. Yeah, some new interesting genetic studies.

Adam Smith:

Absolutely. I'm guessing in Downs as well. Does that bring us closer to understanding why people with Downs are disproportionately affected in the way that they are?

Dr Clíona Farrell:

I think we know that already in terms of the three groups of APP, and that's why it's linked to trisomy-21. But I think understanding broader genetic risk in the general population is definitely going to apply to if people with Down syndrome, and maybe understanding within the Down syndrome population, the age at onset, and things like that. We still don't really know why that's so variable. Yeah, I think that's all really important.

Adam Smith:

I've certainly got lots of questions, which I know to the time I can't answer these. There's a couple of questions that immediately come to mind. The conference I've just been at, Connor and Jodi have both mentioned about the biobank, for example, how well represented are people living with our syndrome in the biobank?

Dr Clíona Farrell:

Yeah, that's a good question. I'm not necessarily sure in the biobank study directly, but Connor mentioned the GP database earlier that you accessed this year. I just was at a talk that researchers in the Down syndrome field accessed that, and they were able to get a really representative population of people with Down syndrome.

I think there's the same issues whereby historically, different codes for different disorders are not registered the same. But I think as those databases grow, I think there'll be a good representation of smaller populations that you can study. Yeah.

Adam Smith:

Yeah. Then my other one was about the drugs that we've been talking about, the anti-amyloid therapies, whether there's any exploration of those in particular subsets of people with different populations.

Dr Clíona Farrell:

There has been in familial AD, and those subsets of Alzheimer's disease, but no trials have taken place in Down syndrome yet. For a variety of reasons that I think are not necessarily great reasons not to do it. I think the companies are a little bit worried maybe about doing it in a population with intellectual disability, or people with Down syndrome are known to have very high cerebral amyloid angiopathy, which is hypothesised to be linked to some of the side effects of these drugs. I think there's a worry there as well.

There's definitely in the Down syndrome research community, people are advocating for trials to take place. I know of trials going on for other drugs, but not necessarily the anti-amyloid therapies. Hopefully, in the near future, they can be included. Because obviously, this is a group of people who are disproportionately affected by Alzheimer's disease but have been left out of a lot of these studies in the past. It would be really nice to see some of that rectified in the future.

Adam Smith:

Absolutely. Jodi, you know that old drug that you found that might be useful.

Dr Jodi Watt:

Yeah.

Adam Smith:

It might be useful. There's a population of people there that might like to try that.

Dr Jodi Watt:

[inaudible 01:00:47]

Adam Smith:

Next question. Here we go. If you could only listen to one Christmas song for the rest of your life, that's it, just the one, which is it going to be, Cliona>

Dr Clíona Farrell:

I think All I Want for Christmas is You. Because I think that can lift you up when you're in the lead up to Christmas. I think that's always a good one. Gets you in the mood. You can do karaoke. You can do whatever you like.

Adam Smith:

We'll find a free version of that. We'll put that into the chin.

Dr Connor Richardson:

Wham! Last Christmas.

Adam Smith:

Last Christmas, yeah. There's been a tonne of stuff on TV yesterday, wasn't there, for George Michael? Is it the 40th anniversary of that song?

Dr Connor Richardson:

Oh, I don't know. I don't know facts..

Adam Smith:

I think it's 40. Is it? Somebody else tell me, is that right? I think it's the anniversary of that song, I believe. There was a whole bunch of stuff on BBC Radio about the making of it, and how it came about. Apparently, the party that there was the video that was a real party as well. He bled all the instruments on everything. Anyway, good choice. Jodi?

Dr Jodi Watt:

It's got to be either Slade or Christmas Time (Don't Let the Bells End) by The Darkness.

Adam Smith:

Good one.

Dr Jodi Watt:

My preferred Christmas aesthetic is one up of glam rock and cat suit.

Adam Smith:

We'll expect to see the outfit next year, glam rock.

Dr Jodi Watt:

You've given me a year to work it out, so why not?

Adam Smith:

That's it. We'll hold you to that. I'm going to remember that for next year's festive podcast. Sam?

Dr Sam Moxon:

I think Jodi's choices are both great ones. But I think I'd go, it's a bit older, Bing Crosby and David Bowie, Piece on Earth, Little Drummer Boy.

Adam Smith:

Anything with David Bowie is awesome.

Dr Sam Moxon:

Yeah, it's just a really weird mashup that nobody expected, but it just sorts of works.

Adam Smith:

Absolutely. Right. We're going to get on and get this finished. Give me one thing you're most looking forward to in 2025. Sam, you can go first.

Dr Sam Moxon:

Just seeing how the company goes, it's a really exciting journey. I'm just really interested to see what happens.

Adam Smith:

On a scale of 1 to 10, how scared are you versus how excited are you? It must be scary starting out on a business.

Dr Sam Moxon:

A lot less scared now, because we're getting good conversations with investors. It's looking like we're not growing out, winning next year. That's a big part of this. But yeah, I'm more excited than I'm scared. Because the worst-case scenario is you learn something from it. What's the worst that can happen?

Adam Smith:

Brilliant. Congratulations on getting that going, Sam. If anybody wants to know more, Sam will be writing for us this year. We'll expect update from all the best for this exciting new business. Sam's also got to go now. Thank you very much.

Dr Sam Moxon:

I could listen to everyone else's.

Adam Smith:

You can? Oh, thank you very much. Let's go to Connor.

Dr Connor Richardson:

Oh, next year, sort of a scary one. But next year is the last year of my fellowship that I'm on at the minute. I'm applying for a bigger grown-up fellowship next year. That's terrifying, but also exciting. I've got a bit more of my own research now that I want to do more independently, or big year of applying to fellowships, and see how that goes. But yeah, exciting.

Adam Smith:

You'll hear it here first. Nobody else will know this, but the Race Against Dementia, of course, one of our amazing funders, their fellowships will be opening at the end of January, earlier February for their next round of fellowships. You heard it here first. We're going to do a webinar in late January, I think. That'll be via the Alzheimer's Research UK stream.

But yes, Race Against Dementia fellowships below opening, that could be one to consider applying, Connor. Five years funding. They've just changed it as well. You don't have to be within 12 months finishing your PhD anymore. I think you have to be within five years.

Dr Connor Richardson:

Oh, I could just squeeze in there.

Adam Smith:

Basically, incredible funder as well. You get to meet Sir Jackie; you get to go on the training camps and change wheels. They've all been incredibly successful with the Race Against Dementia fellows. I love that programme. Do check that out. We'll be doing a live stream last week of January.

Jodi?

Dr Jodi Watt:

Yes?

Adam Smith:

Come on. What are you most excited for? What's going to be big news for 2025?

Dr Jodi Watt:

Your year is as good as mine. Currently, my contract ends at the end of February. I'm not fully sure what I'm doing yet. I am on the market if anyone has got this far with the podcast, that is looking to hire ...

Adam Smith:

Does it have to be in Scotland?

Dr Jodi Watt:

I'm not moving out of Glasgow, but I will work remotely. Sure. I'll come down to somewhere in England once a month. Sure. But my love, and my life is in Glasgow, so I'm not moving.

But it's exciting, because I don't know what will happen. But it's also terrifying because I don't know what will happen. We'll see. But I'll blog about it.

Adam Smith:

You will. But I do also hate that you have to go through there. I think this is a common topic that comes up. It's in our survey. It's kind of something about this and bang my drum for 2025 has been at this thing. But my aim for 2025 is that we get better at dealing with the issue of short-term contracts.

Dr Jodi Watt:

I've got a grant that I'm waiting to hear back about, like a seed funding grant, which would be good. But we're still talking after autumn. If that grant comes through, I should be okay till autumn, but after that, I still don't know. Who knows what I'll be doing next Christmas? But we'll see.

Adam Smith:

Continue to read Jodi's box for updates. Cliona?

Dr Clíona Farrell:

Yeah, I'm in a similar boat to Jodi in that my contract ends in the middle of next year. It's exciting but also daunting to know where I'll be this term next year. But more of an exciting thing that I'm looking forward to, is that hopefully, I'm going to say definitely in 2025, I'm going to publish a few papers for my PhD that I thought would come out this year. They've slowly ticked into next year.

But yeah, really close to the finish line on some of them. It'll be really nice. They'll be my first topic papers. It'll be great to have those in.

Adam Smith:

That's incredible. Yeah. Again, send us links. We always include those.

I think, for me, I didn't talk about my 2024. It's been a big year for, I don't know, this is my work, but dementia research, we did a bunch of new stuff this year. We launched our community app, which has got about 750, nearly 800 members now. We launched a webinar series, The Salon, which I know some of you have been in or guest, hosted, spoken at. We did that this year, which has been exciting.

We've done some new podcasts, bits and pieces. We turned on our solutions lab a few weeks ago. It was really exciting to get the first two questions in for those, and be able to supply answers that were useful, which I kind of really like. We have lots of stats all the time for dementia research that say how many people listen to our podcast, or how many people came to our website and things, which is great. We always hope that they're more this year than last year.

But actually, the little stories like hearing about somebody who reads your blog, and then that changed, or they did something together as result, or somebody who found a funding call, or a job that they wouldn't have had it not been through our website, or somebody who gets an answer to a question, I think I find particularly motivating. That's what keeps me going during this. Please do let us know if we've been helpful to you at some point in 2024, or if there's new things you'd like to see us to do in 2025, do let us know.

But for now, I think that's probably all we've got time for our festive podcast. Pleased and delighted to have you all as our bloggers. If anybody listening is interested in being a blogger for dementia research, do get in touch at dementiaresearcher@ucl.ac.uk. I haven't even had any champagne. I can't get the email address right. But do get in touch with us and let us know. But for now, that's probably all we've got signed for.

Thank you very much, everybody. I hope you all have a wonderful festive season; however, you are celebrating. We'll be hearing from all of our bloggers more in 2025. Have a great holiday.