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[Dr Adekunle Bademosi, The University of Queensland]
Dr Adekunle: My name is Dr Adekunle Bademosi. I'm a postdoctoral researcher here at the Queensland Brain Institute, in Dr Adam Walker's laboratory of Neurodegeneration pathology at the University of Queensland. My foray into dementia started a couple of years ago when my maternal grandmother passed away from dementia. She used to be a person who had photographic memory, but after the onset of dementia, she essentially lost all memory of everybody, including me, and this piqued my interests in studying dementia. Dementia, as many of us know, it's a brain disorder that affects millions of people all over the world. One thing I definitely experienced with my grandmother was the strain put on the family, not just economically, but mentally, socially, and in many other aspects of life we could not have thought of in advance.
The type of dementia I'm interested in is called frontotemporal dementia, FTD, in short. As the name suggests, frontotemporal dementia affects specific parts of the brain, the frontal part, as well as the sides called the temporal corsis. The trouble with FTD is that it's very difficult to diagnose, and in many cases, people living with FTD are initially misdiagnosed with a different type of dementia. And even when it's properly diagnosed, life becomes difficult because there's absolutely no available therapy to treat the root cause of frontotemporal dementia.
My research aims to understand a key feature of frontotemporal Dementia, which is the presence of lots of protein clumps in the brain. Ultimately, we now know that these protein clumps are toxic to the brain, and ultimately lead to damage to the frontal and temporal parts of the brain. It is vital for us to understand what makes these proteins clump, why the clump, and identify potential therapeutic targets that can be addressed to prevent the proteins from clumping. Thanks to Dementia Australia Research Foundation and the ongoing collaboration and partnership with the Queensland Brain Institute, I'm here able to investigate and understand how proteins clump in people living with FTD. We want to identify potential factors, environmental or biological, or genetic factors that promote the clumping of these proteins.
With this funding, I'll be able to make use of advanced imaging tools that allow me to actually see the proteins before the clump. With this novel technology of imaging, I'm able to see proteins at resolutions that are 10 million times better than that which you have, which is standard smartphone. I will, therefore, be able to see how the proteins move before the clump, see them as the clump, and see what happens to them right after they formed up into clumps. In addition, my research aims to study an aspect of the brain that naturally deals with protein clumps - so the brain has a waste disposal machinery that prevents these proteins from clumping in the body. However, in people living with FTD, the waste dispersal missionary is compromised, and so, with this research, I'll be able to provide tools that would help in identifying proteins as they start to clump.
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This research is supported by:
Race Against Dementia - Dementia Australia
Research Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellowship
Dementia Advocates Award
The University of Queensland
Dr Bademosi would like to acknowledge the research team:
Dr Adam Walker and Professor Frederic Meunier
We thank Sir Jackie Stewart OBE and Race Against Dementia for their support.
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Dementia Australia Research Foundation:
A cure is just the beginning
If you would like to see dementia research make real impact, donate today:
1300 636 679
www.dementia.org.au/donate-research
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