Every three seconds, someone in the world is diagnosed with dementia. Currently, there is no cure. In 2020, almost 500,000 Australians were living with dementia and, without a breakthrough, that number is expected to grow to more than one million by 2050. Now the second leading cause of death in Australia, dementia is fast becoming one of the most pressing health challenges of our time. As a reflection of the severity of this challenge, the World Health Organisation has declared this decade (2020-2030) as the Decade of Healthy Ageing in a global effort to advocate for ageing well.
In Dementia Action Month 2021, join The University of Queensland's researchers, Master of Ceremonies, Professor Gail Robinson and panel members, Professor Jürgen Götz, Professor Nancy Pachana and Dr Nadeeka Dissanayaka for a live webinar where they will discuss Dementia Research underway across UQ.
Event Details
Date: Wednesday 29 September 2021
Time: 12pm to 1pm
Venue: Live online webinar
RSVP: Monday 27 September 2021
Enquiries: please send any enquiries to qbievents@uq.edu.au
Meet the speakers
Moderator
Professor Gail Robinson has been a clinical neuropsychologist and researcher for ~25 years in Australia and in London (UK), where she spent 14 years at the dynamic and historic National Hospital of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square. In 2010, she came to The University of Queensland where she has been director of the Clinical Neuropsychology Doctoral programme (2010-2018). Her clinical research is focused on theoretical questions about brain-behaviour relationships like the crucial mechanisms for the executive control of language, and clinical questions regarding cognitive assessment and management of neurological disorders including dementia and stroke. Professor Robinson is currently a NHMRC Boosting Dementia Research Leadership Fellow with a focus on early neurocognitive diagnostic indicators for dementia and she leads the Neuropsychology Core of the large-scale longitudinal Prospective Imaging Study of Ageing: Genes, Brain and Behaviour [PISA], funded by the NHMRC Boosting Dementia scheme.
Panel
Professor Götz is Foundation Chair of Dementia Research and Director of the Clem Jones Centre for Ageing Dementia Research at the Queensland Brain Institute (University of Queensland). He performed undergraduate studies at the Biocenter of the University of Basel, before joining the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Georges Köhler to obtain his PhD degree in immunology. Subsequently, he took up postdoctoral positions at UCSF (San Francisco) and Sandoz Ltd (now Novartis, Basel), and worked as Research Group Leader (venia legendi, Dr. habil.) at the University of Zurich (Switzerland). Before taking up his current position, Götz was a Professor and Chair of Molecular Biology at the University of Sydney. Götz is an expert in basic research in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), focusing on the cellular and molecular mechanisms of how tau and Aβ cause neurodegeneration, using transgenic and cellular models (>200 publications, including in leading journals such as Science, Cell and Neuron (h-index 80, Google Scholar). More recently, Götz developed a non-pharmacological ultrasound-based treatment strategy that removes toxic Aβ and tau in mice and restores memory functions, presenting ultrasound as a novel treatment modality for diseases of the brain.
Professor Pachana is a Professor of Clinical Geropsychology in the School of Psychology at The University of Queensland, Australia, and is co-director of the UQ Ageing Mind Initiative, providing a focal point for clinical, translational ageing-related research at UQ. She has an international reputation in the area of geriatric mental health, particularly late-life anxiety and driving in later life. She has published over 300 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters and books on various topics in the field of ageing. Nancy was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia in 2014. She is currently Program Lead of UQ's Age Friendly University Initiatives.
Dr Dissanayaka is a NHMRC Boosting Dementia Research Leadership Fellow, and heads the Dementia & Neuro Mental Health Research Unit at the University of Queensland Centre for Clinical Research (UQCCR). She holds adjunct appointments at Psychology, UQ, and Department of Neurology, Royal Brisbane & Woman’s Hospital. Her research examines methods to improve identification and treatment of neuropsychiatric manifestations in people with Parkinson’s disease, and uses neuroimaging and biofeedback mechanisms to optimise treatment outcomes, specifically for Parkinson’s disease dementia. She has developed a number of cognitive and emotion paradigms to elicit underpinning neural mechanisms of Parkinson’s disease using EEG and fMRI methods. She is the principal investigator of the Mechanisms and Markers for Mild Cognitive Impairment in Parkinson’s disease, Therapies to Reduce dementia risk In Parkinson’s disease project (TRIP study), Improving Diagnosis and Treatment of Anxiety In Parkinson’s disease project (IDATA-PD), and Technology assisted Psychotherapy for Parkinson’s disease and Dementia. She has published in internationally leading journals such as Movement Disorders, Nature Journal Parkinson’s disease and Journal of Affective Disorders. She was awarded the Lions Medical Research Foundation Prof Ian Frazer Humanitarian Award in 2019.
About Dementia Research @ UQ
In Dementia Action Month 2021, join The University of Queensland's researchers, Master of Ceremonies, Professor Gail Robinson and panel members, Professor Jürgen Götz, Professor Nancy Pachana and Dr Nadeeka Dissanayaka for a live webinar where they will discuss Dementia Research underway across UQ.