Co-Directors' Report 2020 proved to be a difficult year, with the COVID-19 pandemic impacting each one of us. Never before have we, as a global collective, stared down the face of such an immediate health and economic crisis. We are exceptionally proud of our staff and students who responded to the crisis with a positive spirit and managed to continue to expand their research activities, generate online engagement and support each other in such unknown territory. As a research group, we were acutely aware that although we are living in a complex time with a worldwide pandemic, we could not forget that dementia remains one of our biggest global public health challenges. We are grateful to you, our CHeBA family of community, donors, collaborators, and fellow staff members at UNSW who remained connected and understanding of the challenges we faced. Although some faceto-face research had to be suspended, much of our research was able to be modified to virtual contacts and we acknowledge the generosity of study participants who were able to adapt with us. 2020 marked the eighth anniversary of CHeBA and despite the challenges, CHeBA further expanded its research activities and continued to strive for ways to both prevent dementia as well as improve treatment and care for those already impacted. This report summarises our achievements across the Centre, with several highlights including: a $3.289 million National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Investigator Grant awarded to Professor Perminder Sachdev to develop robust biomarkers for vascular cognitive impairment and dementia; significant success for Professor Henry Brodaty in collaborative grants to improve family carers’ abilities to support people with dementia in Vietnam, China and Indonesia; world-first research from our Neuroimaging Group looking at the connectivity of brains in study participants 95 years and older from CHeBA’s Sydney Centenarian Study; significant success in research across two major CHeBA-led consortia – STROKOG and COSMIC. Several CHeBA researchers, including Dr Karen Mather and Dr Louise Mewton, were successful with competitive grant funding. These successes along with continued support from Montefiore, the Vincent Fairfax Family Foundation, the John Holden Family Foundation, the Yulgilbar Foundation and the Mostyn Family Foundation, enable CHeBA to augment its record of innovative research in the fields of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias as well as healthy ageing.
04
Another substantial funding outcome was a $2.2 million national collaboration to create a secure platform for data sharing, governance, control and management services for researchers. We are delighted to see this partnership with Monash University become a reality. Dementias Platform Australia plans to host data on scores of longitudinal studies of brain ageing and dementia which could transform the epidemiology of ageing and dementia. It is a partnership with Dementias Platform UK, which will generously provide the software and their expertise, and COSMIC collaboration, which brings several Australian and international studies to this platform to make them accessible to researchers around the globe.
“We are grateful to you, our CHeBA family of community, donors, collaborators, and fellow staff members at UNSW who remained connected and understanding of the challenges we faced.” Professor Henry Brodaty AO & Professor Perminder Sachdev AM Although our annual events were unable to be held in 2020, we remain fortunate to have the generous support of Richard Grellman AM, Spokesman for The Dementia Momentum and Ambassador for our Wipeout Dementia, who led the Wipeout Dementia Appeal in June 2020 and remains committed to his role leading into 2021. We extend our sympathies to his family who, like many others across Australia, spent considerable time unable to see their mother and grandmother Suellen in aged care. In 2020, CHeBA published several noteworthy research papers, including a major paper led by Jess Lo in Stroke from the STROKOG consortium and one from our Genetics & Epigenomics Group also published in Stroke, as well as many more highlighted throughout this Report. It takes a team to undertake research. Our team comprises group leaders, study co-ordinators, research assistants, PhD scholars and post-doctoral research associates, our long-standing Centre Manager Angie Russell who ensures CHeBA’s operations run flawlessly and Dr Sophia Dean who continues to provide research and administrative support that is instrumental.
