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Professor John Reynolds and his passion for Parkinson’s Remembering Dr Barry Cant, a Founder Meet Whitney Whitford, the inaugural Dawn Fellow Full results from our latest grant funding round Darren Day and Bryony Thorne talk about their research into neuropsychiatric disorders Why are Māori children more likely to have epilepsy? Taranaki Pharmacy throws its support behind Alzheimer’s research 2 Headlines Editor Danelle Clayton Design The Design Cellar Ltd ISSN 0114-9768 CONTACTUS Neurological Foundation, PO Box 110022 Auckland Hospital, Auckland 1148 Phone: 09 309 7749 Free call: 0508 BRAINS (0508 272 467) Email: info@neurological.org.nz Website: neurological.org.nz If you are moving, please let us know your new address so that you don’t miss the next issue of Headlines. DONOR RELATIONS CONTACTS Upper North Island Donor Relations Specialist Theresa Liebenberg – 027 233 0710 theresa.liebenberg@neurological.org.nz Lower North Island Donor Relations Specialist Margie Carter – 021 042 8114 margie.carter@neurological.org.nz South Island Donor Relations Specialist Kellie Bain – 027 478 8536 kellie.bain@neurological.org.nz Contents 4-5 6-7 8-9 10-13 14-15 16-17 18-19 Headlines is printed on paper from responsible resources As the CEO of a charity that funds life changing research, it is a privilege to share some positive news during challenging times for our health sector. In this issue of Headlines we share the 21 successful recipients and research projects that, thanks to your support, have received grants in our latest funding round. It’s incredibly exciting for all of us within the neurological community to hear about possible discoveries which lie ahead, and we hope you share in this excitement. Another of our priorities is improving education and awareness of neurological disease. One way we achieve this is through our extremely popular public speaking events. The scientists we ‘take on the road’ thoroughly enjoy talking to our communities and we always get a lovely response from the towns and regions we visit. However, like most organisations we have had to rethink our events going forward given the disruption of COVID-19 and the uncertainty of lockdowns. More of our talks, in the short term, are moving online as we look at ways to continue to reach you, our supporters. I encourage you to join us online for these events and to visit our library of talks, available on our website. We hope we can continue to host a reduced calendar of in-person events in the future as we always take into account what works best for our donors and supporters. As another year comes to end, and it becomes clear that COVID-19 will stay with us for some time, once again I’d like to say thank you to everyone in the Neurological Foundation’s community for continuing to support us through difficult times. We may be in a pandemic but the research and discoveries we have built up over decades must continue to move forward. Thank you for making this possible. Mā te wā, Rich Easton Message from our Chief Executive