Question: why is your area of scientific discovery important for the ordinary citizen to this country?

Dawn Lau answered on 20 Jun 2016:

Because if we don’t find a treatment for dementia now, we will have a crisis. Not just a country-wide crisis, but an international one. 850,000 people in the UK have dementia, and by the year 2050 this number is projected to increase to 2 million people with dementia. The effects of dementia treatment don’t just benefit the patients, but their carers as well. There are about 700,000 informal carers in the UK at the moment, and this has a massive impact on the UK both socially and economically. Dementia costs the UK £24 billion every year! This is accounting for the loss of economy due to carers giving up their jobs as well as treatment and loss of quality of life of patients with dementia.

If we don’t find a treatment soon, the socioeconomic burden of dementia will become staggering, not just in the UK but worldwide. We are living longer and longer, but the risk of dementia is ever-increasing as our population ages.