REDDITCH-born dementia researcher Tammaryn Lashley (nee. Johnson) has been awarded a Professorship at the University College London (UCL).
Prof Lashley manages her research team at one of the country’s leading brain banks, collecting postmortem brains donated by those who died with diseases that cause dementia.
Dementia affects 850,000 people in the UK, and around 5,000 in Worcestershire alone.
The importance of dementia research has never been more evident, with statistics showing over a quarter of people who have died with Covid-19 also had dementia.
Tammaryn attended Church Hill Middle School and then Trinity High School formerly known as The Abbey High School.
She then moved to study biochemistry at Swansea University, before accepting a research technician position to gain laboratory experience.
Since then, throughout her career Dr Tammaryn Lashley has detailed the hallmarks of diseases that cause dementia, identifying proteins that could be used as potential markers for individual diseases and using postmortem brain tissue to evaluate chemicals used in diagnostic brain scans.
Speaking about her new position, Prof Lashley said: “Being promoted to this position is a huge privilege.
“It would not have been possible without many people in my life including my husband, the kids and mum.
“I also have many people to thank at UCL and beyond for believing in me.
“I’m indebted to those who have donated their brains for dementia research.
“My work involves using the body’s most precious organ to better understand what starts to go wrong in diseases like Alzheimer’s.
“I hope that my research will identify new ways to tackle the disease and find a cure.”
