Ask Your Mentor Podcast, from Dementia Researcher, in association with Alzheimer’s Research UK (ARUK). Mentees interviewing their mentors, talking careers, lessons learned and what they’ve discovered, that could help you forge a successful career in dementia research.

In this podcast Research Assistant Shania Ibarra from University of Oxford, interviews her mentor Dr Aitana Sogorb-Esteve, Race Against Dementia / ARUK Research Fellow from University College London.

Shania is currently a Research Assistant in the Oxford Drug Discovery Institute, University of Oxford, however she will soon be started a PhD. Her current work focusses on a project that aims to discover small molecules that modulate the neuroinflammatory pathway. Prior to this, she graduated from the University of Bath with a BSc in Biomedical Sciences. As part of her degree, she completed a year in industry at the UCL Drug Discovery Institute where she helped to develop a triculture model using primary rat neurons, astrocytes and microglia.

Aitana is a UK Dementia Research Institute (UKDRI) Emerging Leader with a Race Against Dementia (RAD) Fellowship – jointly sponsored by Prof Jonathan Rohrer and Professor Henrik Zetterberg. Her work has mainly focused on the study of novel fluid biomarkers for Alzheimer’s Disease, such as those related to pathology or neuroinflammation. Most recently she has been working as a postdoctoral researcher in Prof Jonathan Rohrer's lab at the Dementia Research Centre at UCL studying fluid biomarkers in Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) as part of the Genetic FTD Initiative (GENFI).

Find out more about Alzheimer's Research UK and how they support early career researchers on their website:

⁠https://www.alzheimersresearchuk.org/research/for-researchers/ecr/

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This podcast is brought to you by University College London / UCLH NIHR Biomedical Research Centre in association with Alzheimer’s Association, Alzheimer's Research UK, Alzheimer's Society and Race Against Dementia who we thank for their ongoing support.