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.

A transcript of this show, links and show notes and profile on all our guests are available on our website at https://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk.

If you prefer to watch rather than listen, you will find a video version of this podcast on YouTube, on our website, and in selected podcast platforms.

Follow us on social media:

• https://www.instagram.com/dementia_researcher/
• https://www.facebook.com/Dementia.Researcher/
• https://www.twitter.com/demrescommunity
• https://www.linkedin.com/company/dementia-researcher
• https://bsky.app/profile/dementiaresearcher.bsky.social

Download and Register with our Community App:

https://www.onelink.to/dementiaresearcher

We gratefully acknowledge the support of our funders: Alzheimer’s Association, Race Against Dementia, Alzheimer’s Research UK, Alzheimer’s Society, and the National Institute for Health and Care Research.

The views and opinions expressed by guests in this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the producers, funders, or sponsors.

Subscribe to our sister show 'Dementia Researcher The Blogs':

https://podfollow.com/dementia-researcher-blogs

- [Narrator] The Dementia

Researcher Podcast,

talking careers, research,

conference highlights, and so much more.

- 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.

If you can't tell,

we festive hat.

We're gonna be reflecting a little on 2023

and talk about plans for next year.

And we're gonna test their

knowledge in a fun quiz.

So let's get into it.

(Christmas song)

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.

- Hi.

- 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 Christmasy?

- Yeah, absolutely.

- For the benefit,

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 you're watching on video,

you'll know I don't always tell the truth.

I do, I always tell the truth.

If we do normal introductions,

I think we're gonna be here all day.

So for the first in our

series of challenges,

I'm gonna ask everybody,

I'm gonna go around

and they're gonna have

to describe themselves

in 30 seconds or less

and I'm gonna set a timer on my phone

to alert us when your 30 seconds is up.

And I'm gonna go because

Anna is regular guest host

and does this all the time.

I'm gonna go to Anna first.

Anna, your 30 second starts now.

- Hi, everybody,

my name is Anna Volkmer.

I'm a speech and language

therapist by background,

but I'm a senior research fellow

and IHR-funded advanced researcher at UCL,

specialising in dementia

and interventions for people

with progressive language difficulties

and their family members.

I think I beat dark.

- 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.

- No.

- Okay.

Connor, you are next,

Go.

- Hi, I'm Connor Richardson.

I'm based at Newcastle University.

I'm a biochemist and

biostatistician by background.

I'm doing NIHR fellowship

at Newcastle at the minute

on dementia epidemiology,

looking at the effect

of anti-inflammatories on dementia risk.

- You beat the clock, too.

And have you just come back from your...

Because you are a Dem Comm fellow.

- I am, yeah.

- This is a chance to get a plugin

because we're just about to

embark on recording a new series

with Dem Comm fellows.

I know 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 incredible

diverse projects on everything,

from eyesight, to falling

downstairs or prevention,

falling downstairs,

all kinds of stuff.

And we live to start a new

podcast series with them

where they're all gonna

take a turn at hosting

and being guests on the show

to talk about their work

with a a co-host who is...

For the first series,

it's gonna be Chris Roberts,

who's somebody who's

been on the show before,

somebody lives with Mitch.

So watch this space for that.

And thank you for joining, Connor.

I'm gonna go to Clarissa next.

- Yes.

Hi, everyone.

Can I start?

The timer starts.

- go.

- Yes.

- Go.

- 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

and their families can

access care more equitably.

And I'm also passionate

advocate for public involvement.

So I run the Liverpool

Dimension Ageing Research Forum.

- Thank you very much, Clarissa.

And you also beat the clock.

This is gonna be no fun

if somebody can't take

more than 30 seconds.

Hannah, you go next.

- Hi, everyone,

I'm Hannah Hussein

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.

- 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 gonna go to Jodi next.

Jodi, go.

- Hi.

So I'm Jodi.

I'm a postdoc research assistant

with Professor Terry Quin 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 and neurodiverse

and see how that relates to the world

of Alzheimer's research.

- Thank you very much.

Well done.

You beat the timer.

Top pressure on you now.

Ajantha, you are the last to go.

Can I drive mine?

- Go on.

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.

We want you to not actually do this

so that I waste my time paid

79 pence for a noise effect.

Go.

- 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 Martin's lab.

I'm pathology by background

and I currently work on looking

at collective vulnerability

in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

disease using IPSC models.

- Is there anything else

you'd like to add to that?

- And I'm having to finish next year.

- Oh, do you know,

I didn't even play the stupid noise?

Do you want to know

what the noise was for?

Just so that you've actually heard it

after all that selling it up it

(Christmas song plays)

- Oh, worth it.

- It cost me 79 pence did that

(all laughing)

for the purposes of the podcast.

Thank you very much.

You wanted did incredibly well.

And I'm sure most of our audience,

most of our listeners

will have already met most

of our bloggers before

'cause, of course, you all write blogs

and narrate them,

which is weird, isn't it?

Because everybody feels like they know you

even though you might never met

because they've heard you talk often

about so much work that's going on

and what happens in your private lives.

But also, as well,

some of you have been

on the podcast before.

So thank you very much

everybody for joining us.

Well, with that out the way,

I'm gonna start

by asking you all what your

personal highlight was.

(Christmas song)

so personal highlights of 2023.

I'm gonna go to Clarissa first.

- Lovely.

- Has it been a good year, Clarissa?

- 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 one 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 Bangalore in India

and I also went to Medellín

and other places in Columbia.

So really understanding how people

from very different cultures

and socioeconomic 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 websites.

So now what we're trying to do

as opposed to doing more research,

really we are trying to use it

as a possible interventional tool,

as an educational tool for health

and social care professionals

and students to learn about

dimension inequalities

and maybe actually change

their care practises

as a result of playing a board game.

So for me,

it's really novel and and different.

So really interesting.

- That's wonderful.

Thank you, Clarissa.

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.

- Yeah.

So all goes back to charity.

- Fantastic.

What a great year.

Thank you, Clarissa.

What about you, Hannah?

- I've got a few kind of personal

and then kind of academic highlights.

So I also did a lot of travel this year,

but for personal reasons.

So I got to celebrate.

- Still counts.

- Yeah, it still counts

like 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,

like it's a lot of work,

but it's also you don't need

to request on your leave.

So as long as you can

work hard in the times

when you need to work hard,

you can fit the things that

you wanna do around that.

So I think that's one

of the things we don't

maybe talk about enough.

And it's quite 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.

- Is that because you're

self-funding your PhD?

'Cause I imagine not everybody

can just go take time off.

- I am not self-funding,

but because it's flexi hours for me-

- I see.

- I can work longer hours

after I can work on the weekend,

which just means I can

be present in those times

when I wanna be present.

And I'm not gonna lie,

being working from home means

that everyone is constantly

asking me to do things.

So you just think you're not

working when you're at home.

Yeah, 'cause 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

'cause I've been able

to master this technique

and it's just a really big

sense of accomplishment.

- Awesome.

- Yeah.

- Well, look, remind us,

what does PROM stand for?

- Patient reported outcome measures.

- 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.

I'll come to you next, Connor.

Connor, our resident statistician expert.

- That was a really smooth segue.

Also just remembered

I've got Christmas Groot.

- Oh.

- Well done.

- And then we go.

Yeah, I feel like I've really sort

of ran the gamut of like

the real, real highs

and real, real laws of like academic life

over the past year.

- Oh no.

- Yeah, 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

gonna be interested out stats.

And then I sort of did

it on a Women of Prayer

and then they loved it.

But yeah, so yeah, had a few rejections,

but the fellowship's been a big, high,

travelling as well.

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."

- Yeah, I know exactly.

I was saying next week,

I'm going to the motor

neuron disease conference

in Switzerland

and we don't usually do much.

Motor neuron disease,

we kind of do with a LS.

And the thing that I'm kind of going,

"Oh no, I won't know anybody

because 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 gonna come to Anna next.

God, I'm getting good at this.

- You are.

Beautiful segue.

Yeah, so 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.

Ah.

And they started in September.

Ah.

So it felt really exciting

because I've always-

- Wanted somebody else

to do all your work.

- I've always loved bossing people around.

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 is offer

a fully-funded PhD position

for a speech and language therapist.

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.

- They're gonna come on the podcast

and talk about their work, aren't they?

We've been having that

conversation offline.

- Yeah, exactly.

So that was one of my highlights.

And I guess another one

of my highlights is that

for this year is I've been...

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.

And I just recently host had

the last phase of that work

and managed to wrangle 46 researchers

from about 20 different countries

from all different professions

and forced 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.

- 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

'cause 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 of your PhD,

but through to now.

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 every many

of you have as well.

But yeah, well done.

Congratulations on getting your student.

Jodi, but I come to you next.

- Oh.

So yeah, I think I've had

a few highlights this year,

thankfully,

'cause it's always a bit a bit hard.

I've had a few years during my PhD

where I did not have any for a year.

So yeah, it's nice to

have a few this year,

particularly, so I work

on drug repurposing

and I'm using some interesting sort

of 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.

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 your diversity

and actually as well with Scotland,

the island problem,

if any of you're 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.

- 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

'cause 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?

- 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 small group.

- Brilliant.

Thank you, Jodi.

And last but not least, Ajantha.

- Yeah, I guess in terms

of professional highlights,

similar some of the answers from earlier,

I got to do a lot of travelling

to different conferences this year

as far like my final year of my PhD.

So I went to quite a

few earlier in the year.

I really enjoyed ADPD 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 US

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 travelling around the US,

I met some friends there as well.

I was also there for

the Quadball World Cup,

quadball 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 some of 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.

And this is not getting him more

into the personal

highlights I guess as well.

- Did you get Victor Clem's autograph?

- That's the dream.

- Sorry, I wasn't marking with that.

I've been to watch it

'cause they play it on the

university fields in Oxford,

which is where I've been to

watch a few times before.

So you were talking,

you were gonna add to that then.

Sorry, I interrupted.

- 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

So like 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 I've been doing

sort of like the longest

of long distances for

the last couple of years,

about 17,000 kilometres,

also during COVID,

which was a interesting time.

But this year,

so halfway through the year,

she finished her PhD submitted,

and she has moved over here SNU now back

and living together.

So that's a big, exciting moment for us

and it's quite a highlight for me.

- Brilliant.

And how's that going?

- It's been-

- Being in one place?

No.

- It's quite exciting, really.

It's just like all the

incidental interactions

that you miss all hanging out at home.

We are not really doing anything together,

but you still are together.

It's quite nice.

- 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.

And I don't know if I should add mine.

We haven't got time to add all mine,

but certainly I think dementia

research will be 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 good highlight.

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.

Go look out for our app in the new year.

I'm not gonna say much more than that now.

Brilliant.

Well, it's time for one of these.

(Christmas song)

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 gonna be two hours long

if we take two hours long doing this.

So we can do this pretty quickly.

We're gonna have five questions.

The first five,

I've got a bit of a

sciencey Christmas theme

and you're gonna indicate

that you are ready to answer

by saying your name as quickly as you can.

So I was gonna 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...

Jodi.

Go, Jodi.

- Ice.

- I'm gonna take snow or ice,

but I was about to say often

seen in common climates

and at Christmas

and there you go.

- And Newcastle right now.

- Oh really?

It's snowing in Newcastle.

- Oh yeah.

- There we go.

Oh, let me give Jodi its tick.

Question two,

what is the name of the process plants use

to make food which is

essential for Christmas trees?

- AJ.

- AJ

- Photosynthesis.

- Correct, well done.

You got a point for you.

Question three,

true or false?

Reindeer have red noses due

to rich network of blood vessels.

- Clarissa.

- Go, Clarissa.

- No.

- I'm afraid that's incorrect.

It's true,

it's true.

Would anybody else like to go

- Anna.

- Oh, Anna.

I mean there's only one

other option, right?

I didn't think this through.

Well done.

Okay, question four,

what do we call scientists

who study weather like

predicting white Christmases?

- Clarissa.

- AJ,

- Meteorologist.

- 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?

- Connor.

- Connor.

- Winter solstice.

- Correct.

Well done.

So at the end of our

first round of questions.

AJ, Connor, Clarissa, Anna,

and Jodi all have one point each.

Hannah and Sam.

All right, Sam was not here.

- What's the prize for the best,

for the most points at the

end of this, by the way,

- I'm gonna surprise you at the end.

- Okay.

- You're gonna 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.

- 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 in maybe some way,

some sense,

everyone's highlight

'cause we're all in

the same broader field,

so maybe I'll touch on those briefly.

Yeah, of course.

And that's absolutely huge

news, I think, for the field,

no matter sort of where

you stand on on them,

just any kind of 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 are 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

of different lipids 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.

- Which talks well, doesn't it?

'Cause there's still quite a lot of kind

of those amyloid touts,

well, amyloid particularly sceptics

that we see at conferences.

So it's good that there's that

breadth of research going on

because I think everybody agrees

it's probably not gonna be one thing,

it's gonna be it's combination of factors.

Thank you very much.

- Yeah, it speaks to that

importance like diversity both

within researchers,

but also in what we research, I think.

- Exactly.

Thank you.

What about in your field, Jodi?

- Yeah, so I think you fell

on some very interesting points there.

I think for me,

I struggle a wee bit with...

I'm very excited about these drugs.

I struggle a wee bit with the

accessibility aspect of them

and that that is a huge problem

and a huge overarching question.

So for me with drug repurposing,

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.

Currently.

- I've come across various

trials over the years

that have repurposed particular drugs,

but 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

been some announcement

about, "Oh, this new blood

pressure medication is

something we should give

to everybody to prevent

or to to deal with it."

Is there other any realistic,

exciting prospects that

we've found in the last year

from drug repurposing?

- 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 like

- Definitely, yeah.

- But I think, I mean 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 datasets.

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

- And we've heard a lot this year about

AI tools being applied

to those datasets to kind of...

and like 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.

Brilliant.

Thanks, Jodi.

What about you, Connor?

- Well, I can probably very

smoothly segue from that

because my fellowship is in looking kind

of a drug repurpose,

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.

But 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 analysing questions in

completely different ways.

And it gets quite spicy,

but that's what kind of

makes it interesting.

But yeah, also there's

more huge data sets come

and become more available.

You've got dementia platforms UK,

which are recruiting

more and more datasets

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 thing

often things which are...

You wanna look at altogether,

but you can't.

So you can either look at

medication in one dataset

and clinical clinical records in one

and MRI scans in another.

And they're all disjointed

over different areas

and I think now you're starting

to see these bigger datasets sort

of really merge their data together

so you can do some much more

exciting analysis with them.

- Those advancements

in technology are really

making a difference

in that space, aren't they, as well?

And I doubt anybody's got

'cause I don't think anybody here works

in biomarkers particularly.

So we should throw in

there that the advancements

in blood biomarkers are

clearly a hot topic for 20...

I mean, they'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 the real world.

And I suppose interestingly,

those advancements in blood

biomarkers must also add

into drug trials of repurposing

'cause you've got so much

more information you can get

from blood now while

somebody's on the trial

than you could years before possibly.

Brilliant, thank you very much.

Hannah.

I've got Hannah.

Hannah, I confused you though.

I was looking at Hannah

but talking, saying Hannah.

I'm gonna say Hannah,

- That's fine.

I've always grown up with a

Hannah in my class at school

or someone or an Anne,

people's names always get mixed up.

So I was lucky enough

to be the podcast host

for the MAB discussion

that we've recorded.

And I think that whole,

or I do think that all

these disease modifying

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

'cause of the hope it creates.

I guess with my clinical hat on,

I have been hearing

people ask me for decades,

when are we gonna 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 do,

I completely agree.

What I've also noticed is

there's lots more money

that's available to do

research into access.

I'm quite excited by the work

that I'm lucky enough to

collaborate with Clewis Ran

who's kind of diagonally

above my head in my picture.

Probably not when everyone else's

but we've been

collaborating on a big piece

of work looking at.

I guess access to diagnosis,

access to care for

people who have dementia,

but who are from more diverse backgrounds.

And 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 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 rationalise that

into day-to-day research and care.

- I think that's come up on the drug exam

and in care now, isn't

it, that personalised?

We talked a lot about

personalised medicine,

but personalised care

or we used to talk about

person centred care, didn't we?

Whereas I think we are

getting more broadly now

to talk about,

broadly think about people as individuals

and what they need both

in terms of drugs and medications

'cause no one type

of dementia is necessarily

gonna be the same

or symptoms can progress differently,

but also in the care they receive as well.

It is an exciting time

and I really enjoyed the

Lecanemab, Aducanumab 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 so John and Cath

and Nick did an 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

gonna be available.

And yes, not everybody's

gonna sue for them,

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.

- And actually, I think

there's also realise

it's not a feta complete,

it's not gonna 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.

- Go ahead.

- 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.

- They will.

- And the kind of interventions

they're gonna need,

they're gonna need it for longer as well.

I worry that researching

that is gonna 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 point.

- Thank you.

- Hannah.

What's going on in the

world of health economics?

- So yeah, so for me,

'cause my research is kind

of it's into health-related

quality of life,

so like I said, PROMS,

patient reported outcomes.

So I've got kind of two

fields I'm interested in,

which is PROMS,

but also like 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,

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 like we know with

people 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

and approach in 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.

- 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.

Personally, personal opinion,

not the view of the pension researcher.

I mean, does there feel

like there's some hope

on the horizon for that?

- Yeah, I mean, 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.

Like if we were costing the care,

the time, the energy,

the wellbeing of the carer,

when we do economic evaluations,

the NHS would essentially

just be bankrupt.

Like 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 there's kind of like a move

towards a more extensive quality.

So that's the quality adjusted life year

and how we can extend that.

That's happening now.

- Which gets me to thinking, actually,

'cause it 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 wellbeing

and the money side of things.

Things will become more implementable.

We need somebody like you,

a health economist on every study,

to add to that

'cause I think it would add so much weight

because, unfortunately, it's

also often an afterthought

as part of a study.

Oh, we'll crack in,

do the research,

and then we'll do the evaluation later.

So if you embed it from the start,

I think it so much,

so many more valuable

interventions would get implemented

if they have that evidence

there as part of it.

Thank you very much, Hannah.

Clarissa, you've been very patient.

Well done.

- That's all right.

- What's hot in the

inequalities research field?

- What's hot

- Games.

I hear games are the thing,

the way of the future.

- Yes, but I wanna pick up on

Anna's point of social care

because that's really what I do.

I look at social care and

inequalities and 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 are 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, et cetera,

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.

- I agree.

I haven't thought...

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 the new 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 come up the agenda

and it's getting a good slice of funding.

It's not all money going

into fundamental science

like 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 multimillion 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.

- And a lot of buy-in and support

from the managers of

all those organisations.

That's kind of key to implementing them.

- 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.

And 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 or email,

we'd send email bullets,

or we'd do Twitter.

During the pandemic,

we just relied entirely on webinars.

And 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 view.

Does anybody disagree

or anything add to that?

- Yeah, you're right.

- I was just gonna say, Adam,

at the Dem Comm meeting yesterday,

we were kind of...

There was a session on

impact and there's somewhat,

I can't remember his name now,

but he's based at Newcastle,

and it has links on the NHR website

so you can find him

and he has a sort of framework

for I think called it like impact analysis

and it kind of breaks it down into like

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 gonna send an

email a week to this person

and say this specifically

and then try and get a in-person

meeting with that person

and try and build those kind of,

just like what you're saying,

like not just throw it

out into the internet

and hope someone cares.

Actually, think about who you wanna do

and doing a sort of

systematic planned way.

- There's a reason why people

like drug companies still have drug reps,

that face-to-face contact

that going out there is

still incredibly powerful.

And I think in implementing some

of these implement 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 gonna be people

listening going out.

Did you not talk about this big thing

that happened in '23?

I think we 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.

- I think it mentioned

earlier the sort of, like,

you have this interesting divide now

between like the sort of amyloid sceptics

and the sort of amyloid pushers almost.

And there was an interesting phrase used

at AAIC this year with the...

I think it was the NIH

redefinition of dementia

and they used 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.

And I thought that was a really-

- Is it, though?

I thought we've...

Oh, I suppose

- No.

Well, it's not.

I mean there's lots of studies

to say that people live with

amyloid in their brains,

perfectly healthy until the dying.

- I suppose mortem studies have

showed presence of amyloid,

haven't they, with people?

- Yeah.

But it's an interesting sort of shift

in how people are thinking

about the disease.

- Maybe if you live long enough,

is it a case that if you live long enough,

you will eventually, definitely,

but you might have to live,

some people might have

to live till they're like

in their late nineties

or something where-

- 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.

- There was an interesting thing.

So yesterday, I went to the IDEAL Study.

So the IDEAL Study is programme

run by Linda Clare of Exeter

that's been going on for many, many years.

I think it was one of the

first big studies funded

by the SRC out of the

Prime Minister's challenge

on dementia,

which is 2012, 2013.

But it's delivered so much over the course

of 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 our,

"Well, that's just

'cause I'm 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, haven't we?

- I don't think that

that's all that surprising, though,

'cause when you consider

like 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?

- Yeah, I mean I did.

Well, I didn't know that about surgery.

But yeah, so that was...

And if you head to our YouTube channel,

by the time you are

watching or listening this,

those recordings from Linda

Claire 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 are gonna get back

to the second half of our quiz.

(Christmas song)

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 question

in round one.

You need to be quicker, Hannah.

Okay, are you ready for round two?

There are no signs elements to these.

These are purely Christmas questions,

but there might be a couple

of a little bit harder.

Question number six,

what are the two most popular

names for Santa Claus?

- Anna.

- Anna

- Santa and Father Christmas.

- Oh-oh, incorrect.

Anybody else?

- Connor.

Chris Cringle.

- Oh, I thought my cover too.

- I think you've had too long.

Sorry.

- I can give you a German one,

but that won't count.

- Go on.

Clarissa, do you wanna

guess two most common names

for Santa Claus that

obviously aren't Santa Claus?

- Anna.

Can I have another?

Anna.

- Well, Clarissa's got another go.

Clarissa said-

- Well, for us is

Weihnachtsmann and Christkind,

which is baby Jesus, basically.

- One more, though.

There's one more-

- Baby Jesus isn't Santa Claus.

- Yes, he or she or it's our culture.

- What?

- So in Germany,

Santa Claus and baby

Jesus are the same person.

- Well, Santa Clause 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.

- How did I not know that?

- 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 St. Nicholas

and so St. Nich and the (indistinct)

- Oh Saint Nich.

Yeah.

Okay, I'm gonna give...

Do you know what,

you've all had too many girls,

I'm gonna give Hannah a go.

- I thought it would be Father Christmas.

- Just think of two names for Santa Claus.

- Not Father Christmas is one of them.

- Two clues.

Somebody's already said

one of them correctly.

It wasn't Father Christmas.

- I don't know.

I don't.

- Okay, I'm just gonna say this.

But the answer that I've got

from my book is Chris Cringle,

which somebody mentioned,

and Saint Nicholas,

but nobody mentioned them together.

Nobody said both together.

Okay, no points that time around.

- We forget half a point each.

Forget them individually.

- Who got Saint Nicholas?

- Anna.

- Okay, so Anna, you get-

- 6th of December.

- Ah, you're trying to get half as well

and Connor as well.

I feel like I'm getting Connor here.

Question number seven,

what well-known Christmas carol became

the first ever song

Anybody?

- AJ.

- First...

AJ.

- It's a complete guess.

Was it "Silent Night"?

- No, sorry.

Carol or Christmas song?

- Christmas Carol.

- What's the difference

between a carol and a song?

- Well, a song might

be like the pokes song.

- Okay.

All right, Anna, "Jingle Bells."