Meet our Early Career Scientist Grant Winner Paige Mumford
Paige Mumford is a Research Assistant and PhD Student at the University College London Dementia Research Institute. The grant will be used to cover the price of her membership for the Alzheimer's Association International Society to Advance Alzheimer's Research and Treatment (ISTAART), including membership in the Professional Interest Area (PIA) 'Down Syndrome and Alzheimer's Disease.
I am very excited and grateful to have received this grant from Hello Bio! I will be using this grant for membership to ISTAART, which will give me access to talks and webinars on cutting-edge research, reduced fees for AAIC conferences, and the chance to network with top researchers in my field. Paige Mumford, University College London, UK, Hello Bio Early Career Scientist Grant winner
Congratulations Paige. First, can you tell us a bit more about what you're working on at the moment?
People with Down syndrome, who have three copies of chromosome 21, universally develop Alzheimer’s disease. Neuroinflammation is one important aspect of the disease that has been relatively understudied in people with Down syndrome, although it is known that people with Down syndrome have general perturbations to their immune system. I am interested in how neuroinflammation in Alzheimer’s disease-Down syndrome is different to Alzheimer’s disease in the euploid population due to having three copies of chromosome 21 genes. I will be focusing on a particular cluster of chromosome 21 genes which encode receptors for interferons, and these genes have been implicated in the overactivated interferon response in the immune system seen in people with Down syndrome. I will explore how these genes, when in three copies, modify neuroinflammation in response to Alzheimer’s disease pathology.
What is it about your field of research that gets you most excited?
I am most excited about the potential of translating the basic science research I do in the lab into clinical applications for actual people with Down syndrome and Alzheimer’s disease. At the end of the day, the goal is to help these people and help lessen the suffering that comes with Alzheimer’s disease.
Which scientists working today do you most admire, and why?
There are so many scientists doing amazing work right now, especially in neurodegeneration, but I will say I was incredibly excited when Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier won the Nobel Prize for their pioneering work on CRISPR. Besides the work itself being ground-breaking, I also appreciate how Doudna speaks on the ethics around the use of their technique, and how we must use this powerful tool responsibly.
What do you think are the biggest challenges currently facing life scientists and their work?
While I am most excited about the potential of translating my basic research into actual treatments that will benefit the population, that translation step is probably the biggest challenge that life scientists face. The work we do in the lab can seem so small in comparison to what needs to be done to actually create a drug or treatment, but at the end of the day it’s the small work done in the lab, that will get us there eventually.What’s your favourite science quote?
“The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson
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Thank you so much Paige! We wish you all the best with your research.
You can read more about Paige’s lab and their research here or connect with Paige on LinkedIn here.
Click here to read about our past winners or why not apply for the grant yourself?
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