Dr Amanda Heslegrave
Name:
Dr Amanda Heslegrave
Job title:
Senior Research Fellow
Place of work / study:
UK Dementia Research Institute [1], University College London
Area of Research:
Biomarkers in neurodegeneration
How is your work funded?
Medical Research Council / Charities
Tell us a little about yourself:
I started my career at Barclays Bank but always felt that I wasn’t done with education so 13 years later with evening class A levels and a BSc I started work as a technician at the Institute of Neurology – I actually was really interested and botany and stress responses in plants which led me to be interested in oxidative stress – which was a hot topic in brain research when I started – so I was lucky enough to do a part time PhD looking at an enzyme linked to oxidative stress in astrocytes. This led to an interest in ND diseases and when ION were looking for a post doc to set up a focused biomarker research area in 2012 I applied and I haven’t been sorry! (yet)
Tell us a fun fact about yourself:
I love running and took on a challenge a few years ago to run the same marathon every day for 10 consecutive days round Lake Windermere – I wont be repeating that in a hurry ;-D
Why did you choose to work in dementia?
I applied for the job at ION because I wanted to be a part of research on brain disorders having had experience of Parkinsons and epilepsy in close family – discovering that dementia is so not the simple fact of ageing we all thought actually blew my mind and made me want to be a part of the solution.
Can we find you on Twitter?
Follow @ajh1269 [2]