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1 Hampel H, Gao P, Cummings J, Toschi N, Thompson PM, Hu Y, Cho M, Vergallo A. The foundation and architecture of precision medicine in neurology and psychiatry. Trends Neurosci. 2023 Mar;46(3):176-198. doi: 10.1016/j.tins.2022.12.004. Headlines 9 When she’s not out fishing on the Hauraki Gulf or busy juggling two teenagers, our Head of Research, Dr Sarah Schonberger, manages the application and awards process for our grants, and all of the research contracts. S arah has a view from the inside, holding a PhD from the University of Auckland, where she spent 10 years researching Alzheimer's disease before moving into research management. She is passionate about supporting New Zealand’s talented health researchers, and advocates for more funding for neuroscience. She talks about her busy role, picks out some trends in neurological research, and explains why our underfunded research sector needs more support. How did you become interested in neuroscience? I always dreamed of becoming a medical doctor but my marks weren’t quite high enough. I was accepted into a biomedical science degree instead and never looked back. For my Honours year, a very inspiring professor, Garth Cooper, presented a project on Alzheimer’s disease and straight away I knew that was what I wanted to do. My Poppa had died with Alzheimer’s and my Nana was so excited when I chose that research project. Professor Cooper invited me to stay in his lab and do a PhD. I never thought I would finish, but I did! I also published my research and it has been cited (or referenced) by 249 other publications, which I am very proud of. What is your role at the Foundation? I wear many hats. Sometimes I am a coach, giving advice on how to put together a good grant application. Sometimes I am a counsellor, when an application wasn’t successful, or a project isn’t going as planned. One thing that I always am, is a cheerleader. I am so proud of the research going on in New Zealand and the time people put aside to volunteer for our committees. What insight can you give into being a researcher in New Zealand? Not many people understand what it is like to work in research. It is challenging and demanding, and my appreciation of this drives me to make it as easy as possible to apply to us for funding, and to volunteer for our committees. To fund the best research we need to have the best people applying to us and reviewing for us, and these are always going to be the busiest people. Neurological research in New Zealand is really strong. We have good talent across the spectrum– senior academics and clinicians, mid-career and early career. We have a constant stream of neurologists that are being trained in research, and collaboration happening between clinicians and scientists. There is definitely no shortage of talent in New Zealand, and the more capability for research we can build here, the more likely we are to be able to retain that talent. What trends do you think are coming up in neuroscience? A recent feature article in the journal Trends in Neurosciences talks about precision medicine and how technology is on track to be able to achieve this 1 . Precision medicine is where prevention and treatment strategies take individual variability into account. When I was researching Alzheimer’s disease I looked at overall changes in the brain, and it was clear to me that this was a complex disease that had many factors. There is now a general understanding that there is often not just one thing that causes a neurological condition, but a complex mix of genes, environment and an individual’s own biology. These individual disease profiles are being put into mass datasets with the aim of being able to predict who is at risk and which treatments different people will respond to. I look forward to the day that we can have a blood test to predict if we are at risk of a neurological condition, and catch it at an early-enough stage to prevent it. This involves scientists and clinicians working closely together, and this is what I would like to see more of. ”There is now a general understanding that there is often not just one thing that causes a neurological condition, but a complex mix of genes, environment and an individual’s own biology...”