Podcast – AAIC 2022 Preview

Voice Over:

Welcome to the NIHR Dementia Researcher podcast, brought to you by dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk in association with Alzheimer’s Research UK and Alzheimer’s Society. Supporting early career dementia researchers across the world.

Adam Smith:

Hello, and thank you for tuning into the Dementia Researcher podcast. I’m Adam Smith, and today, I’m joined by the awesome Dr. Claire Sexton, Director of Scientific Programs and Outreach at the Alzheimer’s Association and, most importantly, one of the brains behind the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference, or AAIC for short, which is going to be the topic of today’s podcast. Claire is here to give us a peek behind the curtain and give us an idea of what we can expect from the world’s largest in-person and online dementia conference.

Adam Smith:

But that’s enough from me. Hello, Claire, and thank you for joining us.

Dr Claire Sexton:

Hello, Adam. Pleasure to be here.

Adam Smith:

So before we start, why don’t you tell us a little bit more about what you do?

Dr Claire Sexton:

So, yeah, I work for the Alzheimer’s Association where I work on AAIC. I also work on our other suite of scientific conferences that happen year round and ISTAART Membership Society and the 29 different peers that are within ISTAART as well, so all of those initiatives, I’m involved with.

Adam Smith:

And this isn’t your first time on the podcast. You were here this time last year, telling us about last year’s AAIC. And of course, for anybody who’s a regular listener, you’ll be aware that we work with Claire at Dementia Researcher on our work with ISTAART as well. And you saw recently, we published the survey results from the early career researcher engagement work we’ve been doing.

Adam Smith:

Brilliant. Well, thank you very much for joining us today, Claire. For those who aren’t aware, when and where is the AAIC, and can we still book tickets?

Dr Claire Sexton:

Yes, so AAIC starts on July the 31st and then it runs through till August the 4th. There also some pre-conferences happening before, and there are tickets still available. So it happens in San Diego, in-person, so it’s possible to book for in-person tickets, but it’s also possible to attend online. So the main conference is a hybrid conference. So all of the scientific sessions that will be happening in-person is also possible to be attending them online, wherever you are in the world.

Adam Smith:

Brilliant. And am I right in thinking, if I remember right, you’re going to correct me here, but do ISTAART members go free if they attend online?

Dr Claire Sexton:

Yeah, so we wanted to kind of keep breaking down those barriers about how people can attend and how people can engage. So it’s free for students and anyone based in a low and middle income country to join ISTAART. And then if you’re an ISTAART member, then you can attend AAIC for free virtually. So really, we want to be bringing the whole of the dementia science community together, so we kept that at the forefront of our minds when we were looking at the registration options.

Adam Smith:

Right. Okay, so join ISTAART for free as a student if you’re based in a low or middle income country. Then, join the conference for free. That’s a good deal, right? [inaudible 00:03:26] so but I might be biased because I love the AAIC. It’s one of my favorite conference of the year, and what I really love about it is how broad the program is. It covers so many things, but I don’t want to give it away just yet, so thanks for telling us.

Adam Smith:

That’s enough of the basics. Tell us who is speaking this year, Claire.

Dr Claire Sexton:

So we have thousands of presenters this year. So I’ll just note some of the plenary speakers-

Adam Smith:

Thousands, thousands of [inaudible 00:03:54].

Dr Claire Sexton:

… thousands, thousands considering from plenary speakers through to all our poster presenters. So there’s lots to cover there, but I’ll give some details just of some of the plenary speakers. So these speakers are key people in the field, and they’ll be presenting the big picture of their research areas. And as you said, it’s really broad. So on Sunday, it begins with Carole Escartin from France, who’ll be talking about astrocytes and neurodegenerative disorders and then closing on Thursday, then we’ll have Linda Lam from Hong Kong, who’ll be talking about non-pharmacological care, behavior change, and mild cognitive impairment.

Dr Claire Sexton:

The one that I’m most looking forward to during the week is on the Tuesday, which is the plenary by Margot Kushel, who will be talking about aging in homeless populations. So I think that’s an area that we haven’t seen on the big stage at AAIC before. It’s tremendously important, so that’s going to be one of the highlights that I’ll be looking out for.

Adam Smith:

And I guess the AAIC can often set the tone for highlighting what’s seen as being important because the scientific committee there kind of… well, I’m assuming the scientific committee choose who the big plenary speakers are. Is that how it works?

Dr Claire Sexton:

Yeah, so we have a scientific program committee. They are broken into different themes from basic science, biomarkers, clinical manifestations, drug development, public health, dementia care, and then they work together in the autumn each year to look at who should be invited as plenary speakers and who should be invited for some of the symposiums as well. So that’s the kind of invited portion of the program, but then, we also have the submitted portions. So every January, then, we receive thousands of abstracts and from those abstracts, then all those sessions are curated and then also, there’s acceptances for poster presenters as well.

Adam Smith:

And I mean, I’ve been going to the AAIC for a few years now and you can’t help but notice that increasingly, the majority of people who are there are actually early career researchers. So I assume many of those thousands you just mentioned are actually early career researchers, some of which will be there for a big in-person conference for the first time.

Dr Claire Sexton:

Yes, and we’ve seen a growth in early career researchers then over the past couple of years as well because with the widening access and we wanted this year, then, to have even more opportunities for students and postdocs to be presenting their works.

Adam Smith:

This is awesome. So what else is new at the conference?

Dr Claire Sexton:

So we have lightning presentation rounds for the early career researchers, so that there’s additional opportunities for them to be presenting. That’s presentations from students and from postdocs. We also then have these research retrospective sessions, which are in a break in the afternoon and at these, then, some of the AAIC award winners, including some of the lifetime achievement award winners, will be looking back over the course of their career and they’ll be discussing both the scientific advances that have occurred throughout their career, but also, the personal stories from their careers as well. So these will be great opportunities to be getting insights from leaders in the field.

Adam Smith:

That’s really cool because one of the great things that I love about the AAIC is I mean, at any one time, there’s about 30 rooms got thing… I mean, you’re going to tell me it’s more like 50, but it feels like there’s about 20, 30 rooms with things going on in them. And I think you can usually find something for you, but I guess with sessions like that going on that, I mean, they’re for everybody. It doesn’t matter whether you are a clinician or whether you are a lab-based researcher or care researcher, hearing people talk about their careers retrospectively and things like that can provide brilliant insights, particularly for ECRs, who I know so many of our listeners are.

Dr Claire Sexton:

Yeah, and that’s exactly what we want for AAIC. We want it to be somewhere that you can come and you can hone in on that area of research that you are engaged with and be hearing the very latest findings and networking with those people in your field, but also, an opportunity where you can take a step back and you can look at the bigger picture of dementia research through these types of sessions, through the plenaries, and to be seeing what connections there are that can be drawn between your research and other areas of research as well.

Adam Smith:

Great. And we’ve talked about ISTAART a little bit already, and ISTAART members play a big role in this and particularly, the kind of different peers and executive committees there. And members were probably aware that alongside the AAIC, there are some other events taking place and peers are involved in the conference as well. What’s ISTAART up to throughout the conference?

Dr Claire Sexton:

So, ISTAART are very busy. So then on the Saturday, then there’s Peer Day, which is free for all ISTAART members to attend, and there’ll be an introduction to ISTAART. There’ll also be a number of different scientific sessions by individual peers, and you’ll be able to meet their executive committees and find out how to get more involved. And then during week, then there’s mentoring breakfasts, which are being led by the Alliance of Women Alzheimer’s Researchers, or AWARE, and also, the Diversity and Disparities PIA. AWARE are also having a panel discussion. So then there’s variety of different opportunities.

Dr Claire Sexton:

I wanted to also hand back to you because there, there’s the ISTAART workshops, which will be happening on three lunch times. So we are talking about how many different parallel sessions from PIA’s influence. Then, we not only have one topic per day for the student workshops, but five now.

Adam Smith:

So this is my opportunity to get a plugin for my stuff, isn’t it? So the PIA I chair, the PIA to elevate early career researchers, has a session during the PIA day. In fact, actually, no, I’m going to take a step back. So we’re hosting one of the preview sessions, which is a chance for us to talk about what our PIA’s up to and give some early career researchers who join our preview session a chance to meet each other and maybe make some connections, which because I know it can be daunting going to a conference like this on your own for the first time, so we’ll be having a networking session on our preview day.

Adam Smith:

And then as part of the PIA day, we’ve just worked out our agenda just a few days ago where we’re going to specifically do some career workshopping to look at some of the career challenges building off the back of the survey results we published a couple of months ago now to try and get to understand what we can change and to help inform our future work on that. So any early career researchers, if you’re not already a member of the PIA’s PIA, tick the box, come to our session.

Adam Smith:

And as you mentioned, we’ve got the pop-up academy, which will be running during the lunch times on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. And that will have, I think, is it 15 sessions? I’ve already forgotten. There are five zones, which includes a publishing zone, a funding zone, a skills zone, a [inaudible 00:11:47] and public involvement, and a career zone. So they’re the five zones. And in every one of those areas, there’ll be a different workshop happening each day that can take up to 30 people in each of those different workshops where they cover everything from like grant writing. We’ve got one on how to make your lab more sustainable. There’s sessions with some of the journals talking about what they look for in peer review. Goodness, there are so many. There are 15. I’m not going to list them all out, but you don’t have to pre-register for these. You just have to come along and get some free lunch for ISTAART. No, it’s not for ISTAART. It’s just for students.

Dr Claire Sexton:

For students and postdocs.

Adam Smith:

Yeah. So students and postdocs, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, come and find the pop-up academy, get your lunch, find a session you’re interested in. Some of the other PIAs have been involved in this as well, and they’ve come up with some fantastic sessions, things like how to read an MRI or how to administer a cognitive test, how to engage communities in public to recruit to studies, things like this. It’s brilliant program, very excited, and it’s the first time we’ve done it as well.

Adam Smith:

That’s my sales pitch to… so we all know, going to an [inaudible 00:13:09] here, an in-person conference is taking a little bit of getting used to, where I should add that Claire and I are actually in the same room. This is probably one of the few podcasts we’ve recorded in-person in ages, but we’re in the same room at a conference right now and you can’t help but notice that there’s some great social and networking going on that you don’t quite get in some of the online conferences. There’s also people, different comfort levels about how close they want to be with other people and things like that as well.

Adam Smith:

What have we got planned for the social and networking side of the AAIC, Claire?

Dr Claire Sexton:

There’s various options. So in the evenings, on the Sunday, there’s an opening reception. Then, we have an AAIC after hours reception on the Tuesday and the ISTAART reception on the Wednesday evening as well. So there’s opportunities just to be socializing and kind of networking and then follow up, then, if you are not staying up too late and can be up early in the morning, those mentoring breakfasts start at 6:45 AM. We are also offering yoga that people can sign up for. And there’s a fun run on one of the mornings as well.

Dr Claire Sexton:

So there’s all different opportunities depending on what somebody’s comfort level is. There’s still those opportunities to be networking.

Adam Smith:

I’ve just started running, and I still can’t quite join that word fun and run together. So there’s a run which you can go on as well. Well, honestly, there’s so much going on with the conference.

Adam Smith:

What about online? How does the online side work?

Dr Claire Sexton:

So with the online, we wanted it to be so that it is integrated, that hybrid experience. We didn’t want it to be that the people who were attending online can just watch on-demand presentations or who have it like a separate conference at another time. We wanted it to be that able to go to the same sessions that are happening in-person. There’s also additional virtual-only sessions and can be submitting questions to the speakers. So then this is just the same as if you were in the room and wanted to be submitting a question.

Dr Claire Sexton:

So it’s all happening during the same week so that we can bring everyone together, and there’s all the additional posters as well. So there’s lots on the online platform, and it’s available, then, also for 30 days, post-conference. So that’s a great resource, I think.

Adam Smith:

Actually, you make a good point there because if you’re attending in-person, you’re only going to probably see the in-person conferences, actually. Posters are actually. There you’re going to have to go online. So even people who attend in-person should remember your laptop because there might be some things which are only online, which you’d need to see.

Dr Claire Sexton:

Yeah, and there’s a special viewing room. So then, if there’s a virtual session going on that you want to be attending while you’re at the conference, you can go to the virtual viewing room with your laptop, and there’ll be headphones there and you can be kind of… it’s kind of like a silent disco, I guess, [inaudible 00:16:25].

Adam Smith:

I was going to say [inaudible 00:16:27] session like a cinema. That’s cool.

Adam Smith:

So all right. Actually, that works really well, doesn’t it? My voice really went high pitch, but that sounds great because I guess, actually, you could argue that the online people have access to everything, whereas the people in-person only have access to the bits that are happening in-person, but not if you’ve got the cinema with the headphones. Great work.

Adam Smith:

All right, so we are coming to the end now, so let’s recap. If you’re not already a member of ISTAART and you’re listening and you’re based in a lower or middle income country or you’re a student, you can go join ISTAART for free, which gives you then free access to register for the online [inaudible 00:17:08] this conference. Of course, however, in-person attendance is going to be amazing. It’s in San Diego of probably one of the best times of year, and there’s lots of events going on throughout the week, both that won’t be online like the mentoring sessions in the morning, the breakfast sessions, the networking events in the evenings and things. So if you can make it work, I think it’s going to be a great event to be in-person at.

Adam Smith:

Also, as well, if you’re attending online, you’re going to have access to all the sessions, so don’t worry if you can’t make it in-person, but do still register. Even if you can’t escape your day job for a whole week to immerse yourself in this, the platform’s open for 30 days afterwards, so you can dip in and out, pick and choose the sessions you’re interested in, but you won’t if you don’t register, so go away and register now. You can do that at als.org/aaic.

Adam Smith:

And if you’re an early career researcher, there’s so much going on for you that the PIAs have been involved in. These preview events, the PIA day, the student sessions on a lunchtime, the morning mentoring sessions as well, of course, as a whole ton of science, the latest research for everybody, whether you’re a care researcher working or qualitative research clinical lab based, there’s something for everybody. God, I should be employed by the AAIC, I think.

Adam Smith:

Thank you very much, Claire, for joining us today. I’d also like to highlight that we’ll be releasing five special ISTAART relay podcasts on the PIA days. This is the third series we’ve done of this, so if anybody’s listening now, if you scroll back to last July, you’ll see the last season of this with the professional interest area representatives being interviewed and then going on to interview their colleagues. And this year, we’re joined by people from the Body Fluid Biomarkers PIA, the Atypical Alzheimer’s Disease PIA, the Reserve and Resilience and Protective Factors PIA, Immunity and Neurodegeneration PIA, and the Technology and Dementia PIA. I did have their names, but I haven’t checked on how to pronounce them all yet, and I didn’t want to make everybody’s names wrong. But they’re all great people we’re going to be interviewing, and there’ll also be video versions of that podcast on our YouTube channel.

Adam Smith:

Thank you again, Claire. Is there anything else I’ve missed that you should add?

Dr Claire Sexton:

No, I think we covered most things there.

Adam Smith:

Great. So thank you all again, and I’ll look forward to seeing you in San Diego.

Dr Claire Sexton:

Thank you. See you then.

Voice Over:

Brought to you by dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk in association with Alzheimer’s Research UK and Alzheimer’s Society. Supporting early career dementia researchers across the world.

END