Podcasts

Podcast – Race Against Dementia Discovery Hub

Hosted by Dr Sam Moxon

Reading Time: 23 minutes

Back in February the charity Race Against Dementia started by former Formula 1 World Champion Sir Jackie Stewart announced funding of its first Discovery Hub, and funding to transform and quickly delivery drug discovery to clinical trials in partnership with University of Edinburgh and the Alzheimer Center, Amsterdam.

In this podcast Dr Sam Moxon talks with three of the people behind this exciting new project – RAD CEO Bridget Barker, and Neurologists Professor Philip Scheltens of the Alzheimer Center, Amsterdam and Professor Siddharthan Chandran from University of Edinburgh.

Listen to hear how this project came about, what they’ll be doing differently and hope to achieve, and why drug discovery and drug repurposing could be key in finding a new treatment for Alzheimer’s Disease and other forms of dementia.


Click here to read a full transcript of this podcast

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.

Dr Sam Moxon:

Hello everyone, and thank you for tuning in to the Dementia Researcher Podcast. Regular listeners will know that we’re big fans of Race Against Dementia. For those who don’t know, Race Against Dementia, or RAD for short, is a global charity founded by three-time former Formula One World Drivers’ Champion Sir Jackie Stewart, to fund pioneering research into the prevention and cure of dementia.

Dr Sam Moxon:

They’ve only been round for a few years, but they’ve really been disrupting the system, sure that quicker results can be achieved when you’re agile and follow some of the principles you find in Formula One, funding researchers for longer periods, providing support, and innovating. In today’s podcast, where joined by RAD’s scientific advisors and their chief executives to discuss their latest news, the RAD discovery hub, and a brand new project.

Dr Sam Moxon:

I’m Dr. Sam Moxon from the University of Manchester, and it’s my pleasure to be hosting today’s show. I’m delighted to introduce our very special guests, Bridget Barker, RAD Chief Executive Officer, Professor Philip Scheltens, who is a professor of neurology at the Alzheimer’s Center Amsterdam, as well as a managing partner of the LSP Dementia Fund, and chair of the World Dementia Council, and Professor Siddharthan Chandran, who is a professor of regenerative neurology, director of the Center for Clinical Brain Sciences at Edinburgh, and the Euan MacDonald Centre, and the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic in Edinburgh, and Group Leader in the UK Dementia Research Institute.

Dr Sam Moxon:

So some very prestigious guests to talk to us today about some really exciting things that are going to be happening in the future. So hello everyone, and thanks for taking the time to join us today.

Professor Siddharthan Chandran:

Hello.

Bridget Barker:

Hello.

Professor Philip Scheltens:

Hello.

Dr Sam Moxon:

So let’s start by setting the scene, and reminding our listeners what RAD is about. So Bridget, if I can come to you first, would you like to start by introducing yourself to the listeners, and telling us all about Race Against Dementia and its overarching mission, please?

Bridget Barker:

Yes. Thank you. Well, I became the CEO of Race Against Dementia last June, and have found it a very exciting place to be. There’s lots going on. As you’ve mentioned, it was founded by Sir Jackie Stewart, with the idea of trying to accelerate research in dementia, and trying to be innovative. Sir Jackie always says that if car in a Formula One race doesn’t do its stuff properly on one Sunday, then the Formula One team will go away and do everything they can to make sure the car is improved by the following Sunday.

Bridget Barker:

So it was getting some of that urgency, and problem solving initiatives, into medical research. And as he would say, “Having a different way of doing business.” So that’s what we are all about, and we’ve done it in a couple of ways. By appointing some early career scientists, some RAD fellows, but also by supporting a couple of projects, one of which of course is the RAD Discovery Hub that we’re going to be talking about today.

Dr Sam Moxon:

Okay, great. Really exciting stuff. And I think that’s a really interesting way of looking at the problem with this sort of Formula One engineering perspective. The idea of constant innovation, and constantly trying to make things better. So that’s a really good way of approaching things.

Dr Sam Moxon:

Siddharthan, if I could come to you next, would you like to introduce yourself, and tell the listeners a little about yourself, and the work that you do up in Edinburgh please?

Professor Siddharthan Chandran:

Yeah, so I’m very pleased to be speaking here. So I’m an adult neurologist, and I’m interested in age related neurodegenerative conditions. And in a sense, what I’m trying to do, it’s not complicated. It certainly isn’t rocket science, in the sense that for too long, all we have done as neurologists is describe disease. And we need to move into an era where neurologists can diagnose disease early, give information to individuals about their own personalized journey, and then offer meaningful treatments. And I would see the initiatives kicked off by Jackie as a key step in attaining that goal, and collaborating with other colleagues like Philip, we’re trying to come up with innovative and disruptive approaches, to try and drive some breakthroughs.

Dr Sam Moxon:

And there’s a point you made there, which I think is quite key as well, this early diagnosis. Because obviously we’re talking, and we’ll probably touch on this later, about a disease that at the moment, when is diagnosed, it’s often too late for patients to get, really, any effective therapy. So I think that’s another really exciting avenue, this idea of trying to bring that diagnosis earlier, so that we can actually get into an efficacious therapeutic window [crosstalk 00:04:55].

Professor Siddharthan Chandran:

Yeah. Just, I mean, Sam, Sam, just on that point. I mean, it’s not just diagnosis, because it’s, if you like, stable doors and horses. So what we really want to do ultimately, is to be able to identify reliably people who are at risk, never mind early in the journey of dementia, because that will clearly open up more opportunities for smart intervention.

Dr Sam Moxon:

Yeah. I think that’s really important. And Philip, last but by no means least, would you like to introduce yourself, and tell us about the research that you conduct?

Professor Philip Scheltens:

Yeah. Like Siddharthan, I’m also an adult neurologist. I like that term. I’m a professor of neurology since 20 years, and I started the Alzheimer’s Center. And my career actually spends almost 30 years of looking for better biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease specifically.

Professor Philip Scheltens:

And we started out with MRI, then came CSF, then came PET imaging, and then the latest kid on the block is plasma biomarkers, actually. And this all has to do, first of all, of course, with an early diagnosis, early detection. And the thing that we learned is, indeed, that the disease is present for so long already before clinical signs and symptoms occur. And the next thing is, of course, to use those biomarkers to identify the right patients, and to treat them with new therapies, and to find an effect on these biomarkers, at the earliest sign that they are effective.

Professor Philip Scheltens:

So I think for me, it’s very crucial that we finally now come, we transcend from this discovery phase in biomarkers, we know a lot more about the disease, the underlying process. We can diagnose the disease much earlier, and now we have to translate that into meaningful therapies.

Professor Philip Scheltens:

And that’s actually the call that Jackie made a couple of years ago. And he said, “Well, you are too slow, you are too old. You haven’t done anything to make things better.” And that was, of course, not nice to hear, but in essence, he’s right. And we have to speed up. And that’s typically what RAD stands for, and mainly also the innovation that was mentioned both by Bridget and Siddharthan.

Professor Philip Scheltens:

I’ve learned also from him that any car in the Formula One races is never the same between two races. So they continuously innovate, they continually change. And that’s the thing that we perhaps in the field should take as a message as well.

Dr Sam Moxon:

Yeah. And that’s the key point [inaudible 00:07:22] that constant innovation. And I’m not going to spend the podcast talking about Formula One, even though I am a huge fan, but nowhere is that more evident in the Mercedes car last year, which at the start of the season was looking quite poor, and at the end of the season was winning races. And I think that same attitude, and it’s interesting you talk about the importance of translation, I’m sure it’s the same where you guys are, but here in Manchester as well, there’s this new focus on translation, bench to bedside. Okay, what you’re doing is interesting, but how can we translate that to the clinic? And when can we-

Professor Philip Scheltens:

Yeah, exactly.

Dr Sam Moxon:

… translate that to clinic?

Professor Philip Scheltens:

Yeah, and that’s where our project actually comes in. That’s typically bench to bedside. So the bench here in this case is with Siddharthan, and the bedside is in Amsterdam. We work together in order to speed up drug development, specifically for frontal temporal dementia. One of the disorders where there’s actually nothing happening, almost, instead of Alzheimer’s, there’s less development there. So we thought it would be good to join forces, also with other centers, by the way, but try to create a platform that we work together on, to speed up drug development.

Dr Sam Moxon:

And actually on that last point of drug development, if I can focus in on what I want to start our discussion on today. So Race Against Dementia recently announced the funding of the RAD Discovery Hub. And I was reading about this the other day, and I noticed the first spoke is Race Against Dementia drug discovery to clinical trial project. So going from drug discovery, all the way into clinical trials, and hopefully into the clinic. And as part of this joint research partnership between, as you said, the guys in Edinburgh team, led by Siddharthan, and your team in Amsterdam.

Dr Sam Moxon:

So I think we could spend a bit of time to talk about this, because it’s quite an exciting project. And Siddharthan, if I can come to you first, is there anything you’d like to tell us about this drug discovery to translation project?

Professor Siddharthan Chandran:

Yeah. There’s several things here, but the starting point is one we’re familiar with, but it’s worth rehearsing again. And it’s despite decades, and billions of dollars, we’re not really further forward in identifying medicines that will change the disease course of these conditions. So that’s the problem we’re trying to tackle.

Professor Siddharthan Chandran:

Now, there are various approaches one might consider for identifying medicines for which there is biological plausibility to justify undertaking clinical trials. And the key element here is not whether the medicine will work in the trial, but have you got a sufficient evidence base that it justifies formal evaluation in what you might think of as the key experiment? And the key experiment is called a human trial.

Professor Siddharthan Chandran:

So then the next question, well, how does one identify medicines? And we can think about this in short term, and longer term. Short term would be, let’s say, the next five years, and longer term would be five to 10 years. So there is, over the last three to four decades, a classic route to pharma led drug discovery. Which centers, as you all know, on identifying the target that we believe is biologically important, and then identifying the right chemicals, and then shifting those chemicals into medicines that will be tolerated and safe in people. And then you have the clinical trial.

Professor Siddharthan Chandran:

It takes long enough to say that, but it takes even longer to do it, and it’s very expensive. And that’s called target led discovery, and that’s today’s orthodoxy in pharma. That approach, which may well be correct, but at the present time, hasn’t really delivered any major breakthroughs in the dementia space. I’m just parking the discoveries, and the work around aducanumab, humanized monoclonal antibody, just for this conversation.

Professor Siddharthan Chandran:

So this project is not about classic target led discovery, which will be a 10 year play, and probably into the tens and tens of millions. There is an alternative approach, which is complementary. Doesn’t replace, it’s in addition to, and it’s exploiting technologies that are now state of the art, and continue to evolve. And in no particular order, they would include human stem cell based discovery platforms. Very powerful, including with gene correction. Different ways of interrogating information, so high end, automated imaging. Different ways of synthesizing, and then curating data. So we might think about machine learning and AI.

Professor Siddharthan Chandran:

And if you bring all of those together, you’ve got a new approach to how one might select, prioritize, rank drugs for trial. And this also now becomes feasible in an academic setting. So this could be academic pharma, right? So then, even if you have all those technologies, which we do, and we’re not unique in that, and we have those technologies, and this is another key point to emphasize, because of a collaborative approach to the research. So the research that Philip and I are embarking on not only brings together Philip’s gang and the Edinburgh gang, it brings together specialists from cancer drug discovery, hardcore basic neuroscientists, machine learning scientists, imaging scientists, and so on.

Professor Siddharthan Chandran:

So take it that we have that, which we do, the question then is what drugs might one begin to screen? So there are many drugs already out there that are licensed and approved by the FDA, or the EMA, or the MHRA in the UK. And the question is could an existing medicine, that is licensed for a different indication, have some utility in dementia? Now that might sound crazy. It’s called repurposing, okay?

Professor Siddharthan Chandran:

Yeah, so let me speak to that. So repurposing is not new. It’s actually, it’s as old as the hills. So if you think of a drug like aspirin, which is off patent, cheap as chips, that has multiple indications, from a heart attack, a stroke, pain relief, migraine, increasingly colonic cancer, and so on.

Professor Siddharthan Chandran:

Viagra didn’t start out as Viagra. It was a medicine for a different condition, and it obviously had a side effect. I also have an interest, clinical interest, in multiple sclerosis. Multiple sclerosis is that rare chronic neurological disorder for which there have been breakthroughs in disease modifying therapies.

Professor Siddharthan Chandran:

The vast majority, the vast majority of licensed, billion dollar medicines for multiple sclerosis are repurposed. They’re pharma repurposing of existing medicine, most of which have come from the immune world, and/or the cancer world. And some of them are actually chemotherapies.

Professor Siddharthan Chandran:

So repurposing has a long tradition, but it’s gone out of vogue in some circles. And what this proposal will do is use the platform I’ve tried to describe, to in the first wave, screen and evaluate existing FDA approved libraries of drugs, to see if any of them might be useful when exposed to assays that recapitulate key element of the pathology of frontotemporal dementia.

Dr Sam Moxon:

Yeah. And that last point is quite interesting, because if you think about, as a neurologist, a good example is migraine. And one of the most effective therapies for that is Botox, which is repurposed from something else. So these repurposed drugs can have a massive impact. Philip, have you got anything to add to that?

Professor Philip Scheltens:

No, I think so the essence is that the repurposed drugs are very interesting, because all the safety and tolerability is known. So you can directly screen for their efficacy in the models that Siddharthan describes, do they have an effect on the pathology of FTD? And then that is actually the next step is, this is all about accelerating drug discovery and drug development, is that we in Amsterdam at the same time, we are assembling a group of patients that we call a trial ready cohort, with the different FTD patients in there. We do research on what is the best outcome measure, in order to quickly identify whether there is an efficacy of the drug or not, and also the biomarkers that we could use.

Professor Philip Scheltens:

And in that sense, we will perform also as a platform trial, meaning that you use one placebo group, and several arms in which you can evaluate several drugs at the same time, in that group of people. So this is all about creating a sort of a trial ready cohort, with meaningful endpoints and meaningful biomarkers.

Professor Philip Scheltens:

And the nice thing is that we do this in conjunction. So both teams will meet. Both teams will immediately know from each other, what each other is doing, and what kind of drugs are considered, and what kind of endpoint we then need to make. So this will ultimately cut out several of the time consuming elements that were there in previous times.

Dr Sam Moxon:

Yeah. And if I can just come back to that then, do you have any targets or compounds already in mind, or are you still at the early stages of working out what to look for? Yeah.

Professor Siddharthan Chandran:

Sam, that’s a good question. I think we do have some candidate promising targets, but I don’t think they’re yet ready for prime time. They’re certainly undergoing evaluation. The other point I might just add, Sam, which goes back to what Bridget said, and also touches upon Philip’s observation, is that a key element of the RAD, or the Race Against Dementia vision is to identify talent early, and then create a long enough runway for the talent to flourish. And the talent is early, in terms of people within just a few years of their PhDs being identified, and then supported in every way, including leadership and communication skills.

Professor Siddharthan Chandran:

And this program that Philip and I are leading, in some senses is actually no different. Despite Philip and I being young at heart, biologically we’re perhaps older than the group that Jackie Stewart wants to see supported.

Professor Philip Scheltens:

Exactly.

Professor Siddharthan Chandran:

And we’ve recognized that. And what we’ve done is we’ve identified brilliant, biologically young, early career researchers, who are also working with us, and frankly, will be leading this, supported by Philip and I. So I want to give a shout out to these guys. And that aligns very well with the grander vision. So Philip and I are there as guiding, and obviously we are deeply involved. But so much of Jackie Stewart’s vision is about identifying, and then enabling the next generation.

Dr Sam Moxon:

Yeah. So if I can just come back to you then, Siddharthan, on that point. So is that part of what makes this different, or what else makes this idea different? And how can we speed up the process? You said Sir Jackie is very interested in trying to speed up this process.

Professor Siddharthan Chandran:

I think several things make this different. First, for me, it’s fantastic to work with somebody like Philip, okay? Philip has decades of experience in an area that, in my view, doesn’t get enough attention. So often the attention is focused on the discovery side, so the laboratory science. But the clinical science of trials is as important, they’re equally important. And developing the right outcome measures, so that you can genuinely determine success or failure. And if it’s success or failure, you understand the mechanism of why that happened.

Professor Siddharthan Chandran:

So this is huge. So just bringing Philip and I together is personally, for me, extremely valuable, and I’m grateful for that. But it’s also brought in these younger folk, our colleagues. That’s excellent. And then one of the things about this money, which is, it’s a lot of money comparatively, but it’s got a high level of discretion. Meaning we’ve got enough freedom to operate, to be imaginative in how we use it. And so we can use it in ways that are flexible and creative, where you can then leverage other investments in our own institutions.

Professor Siddharthan Chandran:

So for example, I touched upon the Edinburgh side of this, but remembering that this is very much a seamless partnership between ed Edinburgh and Amsterdam, but the Edinburgh crowd were involved in this, are drawn from all walks of scientific background, and I think that’s a strength. And we can use this money to seed activity, and generate so much more in terms of the purchasing power of the investment. And that’s because it’s not a conventional grant, where it’s over policed to death, with endless reports, and where every penny at every moment needs to be thought about and accounted for. So that’s not to say we’re profligate, I think we’re being imaginative, and we’re leveraging the money.

Professor Philip Scheltens:

No, yeah. I would just add, I mean, aside from all the things that Siddharthan said, but are completely true and vice versa also are sort of, I would like to say as well, it’s a real privilege to work together, and to getting the groups together, as well. And that’s some of the things that RAD actually, Race Against Dementia, made possible. The young people included, and we will just be supervising the whole thing from a distance, but they have to really do the job, and that’s fantastic.

Professor Philip Scheltens:

The other thing I would like to add, is not only the leverage that the money can bring, but also the fact that we could, in a relatively short period of time, make clear what we want, and get this sort of money from Race Against Dementia makes a huge difference. Because if we would’ve had to write an application to the respective instances in the UK or the Netherlands, it would’ve taken at least a year or two. And would have been judged as too experimental, too forward looking, in the sense, and there is no … So you really need this sort of money in order to speed up.

Dr Sam Moxon:

And I think that’s the worst feedback you can ever get on a grant, “It’s too forward thinking.” How can you be too forward thinking when you’re tackling such a big issue? But it does happen. [crosstalk 00:22:15].

Professor Philip Scheltens:

Grants money is always basically given to the research that you already did.

Dr Sam Moxon:

Yeah. And I believe Bridget, do you have something to say there?

Bridget Barker:

Well, I just wanted to add that from RAD’s point of view, we are delighted that the people who are helping Siddharthan and Philip have become what we are calling RAD associates. So they’re not RAD fellows, because they haven’t got a fellowship from us, but we are supporting them. They’ve become part of the RAD fellows team. And we are trying to support them in the same way as we support our fellows. So by giving them presentation skill training, mentoring them, and making sure they have leadership, as Siddharthan mentioned, leadership training, performance benefit training, in the same way as a Formula One driver would have something.

Bridget Barker:

So how wonderful in your, as Siddharthan says, biologically early days, to be told what’s going to make you sleep better, eat better, and succeed better. All these things we are giving to-

Professor Siddharthan Chandran:

That’s too late for us.

Bridget Barker:

And I think that’s [inaudible 00:23:16]. Absolutely. Well, certainly too late for me. You’re still working hard. But it’s a great benefit.

Dr Sam Moxon:

Yeah. I’ll come back to you in a second actually, Bridget, because I do have a question about the fellowship program. But before, I’d like to just cap off this part of the conversation and ask Philip, if I can, to really drive home then, why this project was needed, what the problems are with the current systems that this is going to address, and how this collaboration actually came about in the first place. I think it would be good for the listeners to know how this whole thing took place.

Professor Philip Scheltens:

So to address these questions quickly, I think the need is to speed up drug development. And this has all gone far too slow. The cascade that Siddharthan mentioned is from going from discovery to phase zero, phase one, phase two, phase three, this all takes a lot, a lot of time. And there are ways to speed this up. And this is by ways of collaborating, and having the groups that actually should do the trials from the discovery part to the execution, bringing them together and work together. So that’s one.

Professor Philip Scheltens:

I think the way it came about is that both Siddharthan and myself are advisors to Race Against Dementia, so we were in close contact. We met for the first time at a meeting, a steering committee meeting, of the Race Against Dementia team at that time. And we enjoyed working together so much, and we had a common sense that we wanted to really speed up things, well of course inspired by Sir Jackie. And I think this makes this whole endeavor really very special.

Dr Sam Moxon:

That’s really exciting. And so I know we are getting tight for time, but there’s a couple more questions I think it’s important to get out first. So Bridget, if I can come to you, and a little of mention on the RAD fellowship program, which has quickly become one of the most desirable fellowship programs, partly because you do get this long term investment in your research. Do you hope to have more hubs, and how does this fit in with the wider plans of Race Against Dementia?

Bridget Barker:

Well, obviously we are delighted to be able to support this discovery hub. And it’s great to be able to work with Siddharthan and Philip on it. We don’t know if we’re going to have more hubs, it really depends what happens in the future. This is a pilot project, and we’ll wait and see how it goes.

Bridget Barker:

We’ve got another project that we are supporting in Geneva, where we also have another RAD associate, so we’ve got four associates in total. I think it’s watch this space, and see what comes forward. But obviously if exciting ideas are put to us, that we think should be backed, we will consider them. But we are certainly focusing on RAD fellows, and we are fundraising heavily, and trying to make sure that we can have more RAD fellows in the pipeline.

Professor Siddharthan Chandran:

Could, could I just add also to Bridget’s observation? So whilst this proposal that we’re discussing, or this program, is linked together Edinburgh and Amsterdam, our ambition, and Philip had touched upon this at the beginning, is to extend this to all relevant departments that can advance the mission. And that includes opening this up to the existing RAD fellows.

Dr Sam Moxon:

And actually that leads on nicely to my next question, Siddharthan, which is something I wanted to ask you. Because obviously you’ve been involved with Race Against Dementia for a while. So if there’s any funders who are listening to this, could you briefly describe to them anything, any lessons you might have learned from working with Race Against Dementia? And what’s different, and what you’d like to see more widely adopted as policy, based on what you’ve seen with Race Against Dementia?

Professor Siddharthan Chandran:

So I think I would strongly welcome others to support Race Against Dementia, for various reasons. I love the Race Against Dementia’s sense or culture of controlled urgency. Its emphasis on its understanding and willingness to take calculated risk. And risk in terms of going early with talent, backing it the whole way, and using every tool that Jackie Stewart and others have, in terms of their networks. So bringing in engineers, data scientists, who have a fresh perspective on these problems is unbelievable. And a good example is the initiative and partnership with James Dyson, who’s obviously a phenomenal engineer and entrepreneur.

Professor Siddharthan Chandran:

Because the science we’re talking about is an example of entrepreneurial science. We want to drive entrepreneurial science to begin to give solutions that will begin to improve the outcomes for people with dementia. And it’s very, very goal focused, Jackie Stewart’s vision, and we all sign up to that. And I like this idea of there is no obstacle that we can’t solve, or bypass.

Dr Sam Moxon:

Yeah. Yeah. That’s a really nice philosophy to take. And before I end with the final question that I’d like you all to answer, Bridget, I’d like to come back to you just briefly, and ask if there’s anything else going on at Race Against Dementia at the moment, anything you’d like to flag to the listeners that may be of interest?

Bridget Barker:

Well, I think Siddharthan’s already mentioned the fantastic support we’ve had from Sir James Dyson. And as was revealed last week, he has given another million pounds from the James Dyson Foundation to support the work that’s being undertaken by one of the RAD fellows at Edinburgh. And that, again, is going to support more early careers researchers and younger people, who are helping with these projects.

Bridget Barker:

And we’ve had a number of donations from very generous people who have bought into Sir Jackie’s vision. And the more money we can get, obviously the more we can do, and the more people we can support. So I’m very focused on that at the moment.

Dr Sam Moxon:

That’s very exciting. So I’d like to end with a final question, and then you’ll all get the opportunity to answer this, starting with Philip. But this is a question we try to ask in all our shows, which is what advice would you give to any early career researchers who are listening to this?

Professor Philip Scheltens:

Oh, well, my advice is to enjoy research as much as possible. It’s probably the best thing you have ever done in your life. And especially if you devote your career and your research into this specific field, it’s probably the most needed, and most important part in research that I could think of. So do your best, and you will really, after this, after you have done your first years of research, there will be a multitude of things that you can do with it. It’s a very rich career path, I would say.

Dr Sam Moxon:

Definitely. And Bridget, anything to add to that?

Bridget Barker:

Well, I think it is a fantastic opportunity. If you become a RAD fellow and you get all this training, just taking advantage of all the opportunities that you’re given, I think it’s fantastic.

Dr Sam Moxon:

And Siddharthan, any final words of advice?

Professor Siddharthan Chandran:

Yeah. I’d keep it simple. I’d say think big, and do not cap ambition.

Dr Sam Moxon:

That’s really nice. Nice final words to end on. I think that’s a good philosophy. So I think that’s all we have time for today. So to summarize what we’ve learned, we’ve learned about the new Race Against Dementia scheme and initiative, between Edinburgh and Amsterdam. Which is very much open for collaboration by the sounds of it, this ambition to drive forward the discovery of new therapies, and really get it translated the clinic. And I think Bridget summed it up nicely with the phrase, “Watch this space.”

Dr Sam Moxon:

So I’d like to finish by thanking our guests, Bridget Barker, Professor Siddharthan Chandran, and Professor Philip Scheltens for joining us today, and having this really interesting discussion. We’ve got profiles of all the panelists on the website, and a link to Race Against Dementia. So please look, you’ll find that in the links.

Dr Sam Moxon:

And I feel sure that Race Against Dementia would also welcome any support that you could offer who are listening. So if you’re looking for a charity to raise money for this year, this is one you should definitely be considering. And we’re back in two weeks time, so have a great week, and keep researching.

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


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