Our Researchers

Christopher Rowe

ADNeT Director, Screening and Trials Lead

Prof Rowe BMBS, FRACP, MD, FAANMS is a nuclear medicine physician and neurologist, with over 20 years of experience in dementia research and patient care.

He is the Director of Molecular Imaging Research at Austin Health, Melbourne, Professorial Fellow University of Melbourne, a NHMRC Practitioner Fellow and is the inaugural Director of the Australian Dementia Network. His research focus is molecular imaging of neurodegenerative diseases, particularly AD, for better understanding, earlier more accurate detection, and to facilitate development of early therapeutic interventions.

He has over 300 publications and is in the 2018 Highly Cited Researcher list of the top 1% world-wide for neuroscience and has received the 2011 US Society of Nuclear Medicine Kuhl-Lassen Award for Outstanding Contribution to Brain Imaging and the 2016 Christopher Clark Award for advancing human amyloid imaging.

Perminder Sachdev

ADNeT Deputy Director; Memory Clinics Co-lead

Prof Sachdev AM MBBS MD FRANZCP PhD FAHMS is Scientia Professor of Neuropsychiatry, Co-Director of the Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA) in the School of Psychiatry, UNSW Sydney, and Clinical Director of the Neuropsychiatric Institute (NPI) at the Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney, Australia.

His major areas of research are drug-induced movement disorders, brain imaging, cognitive ageing and dementia. He has published over 600 peer-reviewed journal papers and 6 books, including one for lay readers (The Yipping Tiger and other tales from the neuropsychiatric clinic) and a book of poems (A migrant’s musings).

He was named NSW Scientist of the year for Biomedical Sciences in 2010. In 2011, he was appointed Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for services to medical research. In 2018, he won the DARF-Yulgilbar Innovation Award for dementia research.

Profile

CHeBA Profile

Stephanie Ward

ADNeT Clinical Quality Registry Lead

Dr Ward BMed FRACP MPH is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre of Healthy Brain Ageing, UNSW and a geriatrician at the Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney, experienced in the diagnosis and care of persons living with dementia and cognitive impairment in a variety of settings. She leads clinician engagement with the ADNeT Registry.

Susannah Ahern

ADNeT Clinical Quality Registry Academic Lead

Professor Ahern MBBS (Hons), MBA, FRACMA, PhD, is the Head of the Clinical Outcomes data Reporting and Research Program, at the Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University. She is a member of the Australian Commission in Safety and Quality in Health Care's Advisory Committee for Clinical Quality Registries (CQRs) and the Commonwealth Department of Health's CQR Strategy Expert Advisory Group, as well as a member of the Victorian DHHS's CQR Advisory Group. She has extensive experience in the development and management of clinical quality registries and brings this experience and the IT facilities of Monash University that are essential for the successful development and implementation of the national Dementia CQR.

As the academic lead of the ADNeT Dementia Clinical Quality Registry, Professor Ahern has overall responsibility for allocation of Monash staff and resources to the project, as well working closely with Kasey Wallis and Stephanie Ward on ensuring that the ADNeT Registry meets its deliverables and timelines. She drives much of the publication and presentation work of the ADNeT Registry, and leads grant and funding applications for related complementary and collaborative projects.

She is an author on the following dementia/ADNeT publications:

1. Lin X, Ward S, Ahern S, Wallis K, Brodaty H, Rowe C, Lambourne S, McNeil J. Optimising participation of persons with cognitive impairment in a national dementia registry: challenges and solutions
2. Lin, X., Wallis, K., Ward, S A., Brodaty, H., Sachdev P, Naismith S, Krysinska, K., McNeil JJ, Rowe C, Ahern, S. The protocol of a clinical quality registry for dementia and mild cognitive impairment (MCI): the Australian dementia network (ADNeT) Registry
3. Ayton D, Gardam M, Pritchard E, Ruseckaite R, Ryan J, Robinson S, Brodaty H, Ward S, Ahern S. Patient-Reported Outcome Measures to Inform Care of People With Dementia—A Systematic Scoping Review
4. Ayton, D., Gardam, M., Ward, S., Brodaty, H., Pritchard, E., Earnest, A., Krysinska, K., Banaszak-Holl J., McNeil, J., Ahern, S. How Can Quality of Dementia Care Be Measured? The Development of Clinical Quality Indicators for an Australian Pilot Dementia Registry

Colin Masters

ADNeT Screening and Trials co-Lead

Prof Masters' career over the last 35 years is widely acknowledged as having had a major influence on Alzheimer’s disease research worldwide, particularly the collaborative studies conducted with Konrad Beyreuther in which they discovered the proteolytic neuronal origin of the Aβ amyloid protein which causes Alzheimer’s disease.

More recently, his focus has been on describing the natural history of Alzheimer’s disease as a necessary preparatory step for therapeutic disease modification. His achievements have been recognised by the receipt of many international awards.

Sharon Naismith

ADNeT Memory Clinics Lead

Prof Naismith is a Clinical Neuropsychologist, NHMRC Dementia Leadership Fellow and Heads the Healthy Brain Ageing Program at the Brain and Mind Centre. Her work focuses on modifiable risk factors for dementia and clinical interventions for early cognitive decline including cognitive training, sleep and pharmacological interventions. She leads an NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence to ‘Optimise Sleep in Brain Ageing and Neurodegeneration (CogSleep)’.

Prof Naismith leads the Memory Clinics Initiative of ADNeT, which aims to improve access to and harmonise services for dementia in Australia. The team’s strategies include national networking and service mapping, new guidelines, innovation with new tools, filling the evidence-to-practice gap and training of clinicians.

Michael Breakspear

ADNeT Technology Clinical Lead

Prof Breakspear MB BS, PhD, FRANZCP is a professor of neuroscience at the University of Newcastle and a consultant psychiatrist. He is the group leader of the Systems Neuroscience Group with interests in computational neuroscience and translational neuroimaging. His work in translational imaging encompasses healthy ageing, dementia, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, with a focus on connectomics and risk prediction.

He leads the technology division of ADNeT together with Jurgen Fripp from CSIRO, with the goal of ensuring all ADNeT data is of the highest quality and stored in a manner that is safe and of most benefit for the entire ADNeT team. Prof Breakspear also leads the ADNeT site in Newcastle, NSW studying healthy ageing and early dementia, with a view to referring people from the Hunter communities into local clinical trials sites.

Peter Schofield

ADNeT Business Development Lead

Prof Schofield AO FAHMS PhD DSc is CEO of NeuRA (Neuroscience Research Australia) and a Professor of Medicine at UNSW. His research interests focus on genetics of brain function, neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders such as Alzheimer's disease and bipolar disorder. He is a site leader for the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network. He served as the Interim Director of the NNIDR in 2016-17.

Peter is an ADNeT Chief Investigator and is responsible for ADNeT's Business portfolio. This includes the oversight business development role and legal advice with the goal of securing pharmaceutical and other support to enhance the capacity and activity of ADNeT’s research. He is also a Director of Australian Dementia Network Limited, the not-for-profit company that has been established to facilitate external investment into ADNeT.

Ralph Martins

ADNeT Chief Investigator

Prof Martins holds a joint academic appointment – Foundation Professor and Inaugural Chair in Ageing and Alzheimer’s (Edith Cowan University) and Professor in Biomedical Sciences (Macquarie University). His groundbreaking discoveries include the seminal discovery of beta-amyloid and its precursor, the amyloid precursor protein (APP), found in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients which is now universally acknowledged as being fundamental to the molecular pathology of Alzheimer’s disease.

Kaarin Anstey

ADNeT Chief Investigator

ARC Laureate Fellow Prof Anstey BA (Hons) Syd., PhD Qld., FASSA, FAPS is Director of the UNSW Ageing Futures Institute, and a Senior Principal Research Scientist at NeuRA. Prof Anstey’s research focuses on cognitive aging and resilience as well as dementia risk reduction, and older drivers. She is a director of the NHMRC Dementia Centre for Research Collaboration and Co-Deputy Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research.

Prof Anstey is a Chief Investigator with ADNeT, and member of the ADNeT Steering Committee and Full Committee.

She is developing dementia risk assessment tools in collaboration with Prof Naismith, for use in clinical assessment. She also leads a cohort study that provides population-based data on dementia to inform the larger program of work.

Henry Brodaty

ADNeT Chief Investigator

Prof Brodaty AO, MB BS, MD, DSc, FRACP, FRANZCP, FAHMS is a researcher, clinician, policy advisor and strong advocate for people with dementia and their carers.

At UNSW Sydney, he is Scientia Professor of Ageing and Mental Health, Co-Director of the Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing, and Director, Dementia Centre for Research Collaboration. He has over 600 publications in refereed journals, is a senior psychogeriatrician at POW Hospital.

He was previously President of International Psychogeriatric Association, Chairman of Alzheimer’s Disease International, and President of Alzheimer’s Australia NSW and Australia. He is an officer of the Order of Australia and Ryman Prize winner.

Rob Grenfell

ADNeT Associate Investigator

Dr Grenfell, a Public Health Physician, is the Director of CSIRO’s Health and Biosecurity Business Unit. Leading a broad portfolio covering Nutrition, eHealth, Medtech and Diagnostics and Biosecurity from weeds to Ebola.

Rob has broad ranging public health experience including the National Medical Director at BUPA Australia New Zealand, National Director Cardiovascular Health at the Heart Foundation, Strategic Health Advisor to Parks Victoria, Senior Medical Advisor at the Department of Health Victoria, Physician in charge of travel health BHP and General Practice. He was a member of the Safety and Quality Outcomes Committee of the Hospital Innovation Reform Council, a member of the Victorian Quality Council, Chair of General Practice Victoria, and Member of the Health Advisory Committee of the National Health and Medical Research Council.

Susan Kurrle

ADNeT Associate Investigator

Prof Kurrle is a geriatrician practising in northern Sydney and in southern NSW, with a longstanding interest in diagnosis and management of dementia. She holds the Curran Chair in Health Care of Older People in the Faculty of Medicine and Health at the University of Sydney, where she led the NHMRC Cognitive Decline Partnership Centre from 2012 to 2020.

Her work in ADNeT is in the area of Memory Clinics, as well as contributing to the Clinical Quality Registry.

James Vickers

ADNeT Chief Investigator

Prof Vickers is the Director of the Wicking Dementia Centre. His main research areas are in neurodegenerative conditions, particularly Alzheimer’s disease, as well as neural injury and plasticity. His research extends from human brain research through to experimental models and interventional cohort studies.

Prof Vickers leads a large public health project (Island Study Linking Ageing and Neurodegenerative Disease, >12,000 participants) to reduce dementia risk in Tasmania and has developed online courses on ‘Understanding Dementia’ and ‘Preventing Dementia’ with over 400,000 enrolees worldwide.

The Wicking Centre also hosts the ISLAND Memory and Cognition Clinic that is linked to the ADNeT Clinics initiative and is the focus of recruitment for the ADNeT Registry.

1. The Island Study Linking Ageing and Neurodegenerative Disease (ISLAND): A longitudinal public health research program targeting dementia risk reduction
2. Understanding Dementia
3. Preventing Dementia

Elizabeth Beattie

ADNeT Associate Investigator

Elizabeth Beattie PhD, RN, FGSA, FAAN, Professor of Aged and Dementia Care, School of Nursing, Queensland University of Technology, is a psychogeriatric nurse educated in Australia, the UK and the US who has been involved in dementia-focused clinical practice, education and research for 30 years.

She is a Director of the Dementia Centre for Research Collaboration and Dementia Training Australia. Elizabeth has an international nursing leadership profile and a sustained record of competitive research funding and publication. Her research is focused on improving the quality of care and quality of life of people living with dementia and those who support them.

Ashley Bush

ADNeT Associate Investigator

Prof Bush MBBS, DPM, FRANZCP, PhD, FAAHMS, FAPA is NHMRC L3 Fellow and the Director of the Melbourne Dementia Research Centre at The Florey Institute of Neuroscience & Mental Health, University of Melbourne. He has experience in prospective cohorts for dementia biomarker and imaging development, as well as dementia clinical trials, that will be used to optimize the value of the ADNeT registries.

Prof Bush is involved in the clinical trials committee of ADNeT, working on the design and implementation of investigator-initiated clinical trials.

Cerebral quantitative susceptibility mapping predicts amyloid-β-related cognitive decline

Maria Crotty

ADNeT Associate Investigator

Prof Crotty is a Rehabilitation Physician and Clinical Academic at Flinders University. She is Director of Rehabilitation at Flinders Medical Centre and a Research Fellow at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute. Her work focuses on non-pharmacological approaches after dementia diagnosis and particularly rehabilitation approaches.

She coordinates ADNeT's activities in South Australia.

Annette Dobson

ADNeT Associate Investigator

Prof Dobson AM, FAHMS, BSc, MSc, PhD, Grad Cert Mngt, A Stat is Professor of Biostatistics and Director of the Centre for Longitudinal and Life Course Research in the School of Public Health at the University of Queensland.

She has expertise in statistical modelling and running large scale, long duration, epidemiological studies. She is particularly interested in improving Australia’s national statistics on dementia, from a whole-of-population perspective and works with the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare to improve administrative records on dementia.

Leon Flicker

ADNeT Associate Investigator

Leon Flicker is the inaugural Professor of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Western Australia since 1998. He helped establish a research unit aimed at translational issues focusing on the health needs of older people, the Western Australian Centre for Health and Ageing. He has been interested in the risk factors, assessment and management of the common problems of older people. In 2017 he was honored with an Order of Australia for his contributions to geriatric medicine and dementia prevention and care.

Paul Maruff

ADNeT Associate Investigator

Paul Maruff PhD is Chief Science Officer at CogState Ltd, Australia and Professor at Florey Institute for Neuroscience. He is a member of the AIBL study and his research focuses on the use of cognitive tests as outcome measures in clinical trials. This design of clinical outcome measures in clinical trials is central to testing hypotheses about the effects of experimental drugs in people at all stages of Alzheimer’s Disease.

John McNeil

ADNeT Associate Investigator

Prof McNeil MSc PhD FRACP is a physician/epidemiologist whose principal interest has been clinical quality registries and clinical trials. He is the co- Principal Investigator of the ASPREE (ASPirin in Reducing Events in the Elderly) study, and was a co-investigator in the original ADNeT grant application.

Prof McNeil’s current role is to provide insights from the NIH funded ASPREE project that might be of value to the future development of the ADNeT registry. In this study about 19,000 cognitively normal elderly US & Australian citizens have been followed forward with regular cognitive tests for approximately 8 years.

One sub-study will inform the registry by regularly following forward participants diagnosed clinically with dementia and determining what quality of care metrics might be measurable at different stages of decline. This information will assist with benchmarking quality of care indices amongst Australian providers of dementia care.

Nicole Kochan

ADNeT Associate Investigator

Nicole Kochan MClin Neuropsych, PhD, is a clinical neuropsychologist and senior research fellow at the Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA), UNSW Sydney.

She has experience in large cohort studies of cognitive ageing and dementia, and is the Principal Investigator of the NHMRC-funded CogSCAN project, a cross-comparison study validating the use of computerised cognitive instruments in older adults with and without cognitive impairment.

Nicole contributes her neuropsychological expertise as a clinician and researcher to the ADNeT Memory Clinics Initiative. She had a major role in producing the ADNeT initial guidelines and perspectives paper for managing memory clinics during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper compiled by the ADNeT Memory Clinic team provided clinicians nationally with practical guidelines and evidence-based practice for the provision of cognitive assessment services in the context of the COVID-19-associated physical restrictions.

Nicole initiated the recently published national survey of the assessment practices of public and private memory clinics across Australia. She is also involved in the harmonisation efforts for a best practice standard of cognitive and other assessment tools to be implemented in the ADNeT memory clinics and helped to develop a convenient and time-saving normative calculator tool.

1. Managing Memory Clinics during the COVID-19
2. Organisational aspects and assessment practices of Australian memory clinics: an Australian Dementia Network (ADNeT) Survey

Lee-Fay Low

ADNeT Associate Investigator

Lee-Fay Low (BSc Psych (Hons), PhD), is Professor in Ageing and Health, NHMRC Boosting Dementia Research Leadership Development Fellow, University of Sydney. She is a registered psychologist with a PhD in psychiatric epidemiology, and is particularly interested in developing and evaluating interventions to improve the quality of life of older people.

A/Prof Low has authored over 120 peer-reviewed articles, as well as two books on dementia. At ADNeT, A/Prof Low works with the Memory Clinics team, focusing on post-diagnostic support and models of care. She also facilitates the involvement of people with dementia and carers in the ADNeT Memory Clinics and contributes to the ADNeT Registry survey group.

Peter Nestor

ADNeT Associate Investigator

Prof Nestor is conjoint professor of cognitive neurology at the University of Queensland and the Mater Hospital. He trained in neurology in Melbourne and London in the 90s then worked for several years as a clinician-scientist at the University of Cambridge. From 2012 until returning to Australia in 2017, he was Professor of Cognitive Neurology at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases.

Olivier Salvado

ADNeT Associate Investigator

Prof Salvado MSEE, MBA, PhD, is the Head of Imaging and Computer Vision at CSIRO Data61 and Honorary Professor with QUT and UQ. He has been involved in several large clinical studies involving medical image setup and analysis (MRI and PET) and biostatistics, including the AIBL and PISA studies.

CSIRO Data61 develops AI technologies that help identify biomarkers from MRI and PET scans, using advanced machine learning techniques enabled by ADNeT to analyse large datasets. These biomarkers help to diagnose, predict and track the disease evolution for specific individuals.