clinical focus
“ Growing up my grandma took good care of me , she had a very good memory , she always remembered everything . And I remember sometime in my first year of uni , where she started to forget me , and then we discovered that she had Alzheimer ’ s disease . For me that was one of the motivating factors in going ahead to say , ‘ Okay , I ’ m going to equip myself to be able to contribute towards the dementia field ’. And that was my personal motivation .
“ But more importantly , when I look at the history of science we ’ ve been able to improve health and average life span in the last 50 , 60 , 70 years . So this is a new thing that we ’ re facing ; the fact that if we now grow old and are facing difficulties in terms of memory loss it ’ s up to us to find a solution to actually make this work . And that ’ s my passion . I love getting solutions to difficult questions .”
And for McKinnon , his work will hopefully be between research findings and how they are ultimately implemented in a clinical setting .
“ If it goes through the way that I ’ m hoping it will , then it ’ ll be fairly significant in terms of what it may be able to contribute to , or at least provide preliminary evidence for in dementia research moving forward , in terms of novel modifiable risk factors ,” he says .
“ And so one of the big things about this fellowship … is that they are focusing on trying to create , by the end of it , young emerging leaders in this field . And I think this is a wonderful opportunity for me to be able to move that aim forward and hopefully achieve that outcome by the end of the fellowship .”
Chair of the Dementia Australia Research Foundation , Professor Graeme Samuel AC , congratulated the pair and said that with dementia now affecting almost 50 million people worldwide , research is more important than ever .
“ These fellowships form part of the Dementia Australia Research Foundation ’ s
Sir Jackie and Lady Stewart at the 2009 Italian Grand Prix . Photo : raceagainstdementia . com
2020 grant round , with more than $ 1.7 million in funding on offer for earlycareer researchers .
“ This is an incredibly valuable initiative , and we are excited to be joining Race Against Dementia ’ s international network of early-career researchers . I look forward to seeing the outcomes of the research .” ■
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