Supporting world-leading brain research

PhD student Thalia Perez Suarez Image: Peter Allen

The brain is the body’s most complex and mysterious organ.

Billions of neurons talk to each other, sharing information and forming circuits. Connections and collaboration are key to its effective function. In this respect, it is not unlike medical research.

It’s one of the reasons that supporting people, as well as projects, is paramount to finding improved ways to treat and care for people who are living with dementia. Professor Anna King from the Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre at the University of Tasmania said that’s what makes the support provided by the Yulgilbar Foundation of critical importance. “It has supported students and staff behind world-leading dementia research through scholarships, travel funds and awards,” Professor King said. The Foundation is a family-run private ancillary fund established in 2001 by Baillieu and Sarah Myer. The family is passionate about seeing rural and regional Australia prosper and the Foundation focuses on education, environment, capacity building and Alzheimer’s disease research. Wicking Centre Senior Lecturer Dr Adele Woodhouse received a Yulgilbar Foundation Postdoctoral Excellence Award, prompting her to seek further support for her two PhD students, Andrew Phipps and Thalia Perez Suarez. The scholarships they received meant that promising research into the epigenetics of Alzheimer’s disease progressed from investigations in mouse models into experiments in human brain tissue. “A large proportion of sporadic Alzheimer’s disease risk remains unexplained,” Dr Woodhouse said. Epigenetics is the study of the complex processes that turn genes on or off in response to the environment. “We aim to identify critical epigenetic changes in human nerve cells that drive brain dysfunction and degeneration in Alzheimer’s disease.”

The project will create the first epigenetic maps in vulnerable human nerve cells at different stages of the disease, predict new roles of genes and could even help identify drug targets. “I am deeply grateful for the support I received from the Yulgilbar Foundation,” Thalia said. “The top-up scholarship gave me the opportunity to attend and participate in national and international conferences and workshops, to acquire new knowledge relevant to my research topic and to exchange scientific opinions about the progress of my PhD project. “Furthermore, it provided financial support that allowed me to focus exclusively on my PhD studies and alleviated me from financial stress, mainly during the uncertain period of the COVID-19 pandemic.” Professor King said that fostering national and international collaborations across disciplines was vital when it came to improving our understanding of dementia. One way this could be achieved is through scientists attending conferences and visiting labs where they exchange ideas and research. They can also create collaborations across borders, fast-tracking medical research. In some instances, this can be life-changing for individual students. This was certainly the case for one of Professor King’s students, Kelsey Hanson, who was a previous recipient of the Foundation’s scholarship. Kelsey was investigating microtubules, tiny hollow structures – part of the skeleton of cells – and how these are involved in the loss of communication between neurons in Alzheimer’s disease.

Thanks to support from the Foundation, she presented her findings at the International Society for Neuroscience Conference in Cairns and was invited to have her work presented at a special symposium. Kelsey also had the chance to travel to the UK to meet neuroscientists in her field, including presenting her work at the University of Manchester. “The PhD top-up award has allowed Kelsey to reach an international audience, which otherwise would not have been possible,” Professor King said.