I met Trevor Crawford shortly after I arrived at Lancaster University to take up a post as Senior Lecturer in Department of Biochemistry in 1998, due to our shared interest in Dementia. Shortly afterwards, we started a collaboration with a clinical team and lay volunteers at the Royal Lytham Hospital, to develop novel diagnostic markers and new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease. We started the ‘Lancashire Interest in Dementia Research’ group with Dr Ted Renvoize, which met once a month at Lytham Hospital, where we gave regular research talks and developed research proposals. We were successful at obtaining funding from The Sir John Fisher foundation, and have been funded by them continuously for the last 13 years, as follows:
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2009-2018 Sir John Fisher Foundation (with Trevor Crawford, Psychology) on ‘Longitudinal investigation of novel biomarkers and the effects of anti-dementia treatments for Alzheimer’s disease’, £380,000.
2016-2019 Sir John Fisher Foundation (with Trevor Crawford, Psychology), funds for two 3-year PhD studentships on Alzheimer’s disease, £240,000
2019-2022 Sir John Fisher Foundation (with Trevor Crawford, Psychology), funds for two 3-year PhD studentships to work on projects related to dementia, £200,000
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The initial research phase funded 4 PhD and PDRA students, and resulted in high impact publications and further national and international grants over this period. This laid the ground work for our current collaboration which has been funding PhD studentships. I am extremely grateful to Trevor who has taken the lead role in obtaining this funding. This funding has contributed to the following publications arising from my lab:-
Tabner B.J., Mayes J. & Allsop D. (2011) Hypothesis: soluble oligomers in association with redox-active metal ions are the optimal generators of reactive oxygen species in Alzheimer’s disease. Int. J. Alzheimer’s Disease 2011, Article ID 546380, doi:10.4061/2011/546380
Masad A., Tabner B.J., Mayes J. & Allsop D. (2011) The amylin peptide implicated in type 2 diabetes stimulates copper-mediated carbonyl group and ascorbate radical formation. Free Radical Biol. Med. 51, 869-875.
Tabner, B., Moore, S., Mayes, J., Allsop, D. 2013 In: Brain diseases and metalloproteins. A possible key role for redox-active metal ions and soluble oligomers in neurodegenerative diseases. Boca Raton, Fla.: Pan Stanford p. 11-32. 22 p. ISBN: 978-981-4316-01-9. Electronic ISBN: 978-981-4364-07-2
Tinker-Mill C., Mayes J., Allsop D. & Kolosov, O.V. (2014) Ultrasonic force microscopy for nanomechanical characterization of early and late-stage amyloid-β peptide aggregation. Scientific Reports 4, 4004; doi:10.1038/srep04004.
Mayes J., Tinker-Mill C., Kolosov O., Zhang H., Tabner B.J. & Allsop D. (2014) β-Amyloid fibrils in Alzheimer disease are not inert when bound to copper ions but can degrade hydrogen peroxide and generate reactive oxygen species. J. Biol. Chem. 289, 12052-12062.
Allsop D. & Mayes J. (2014) Amyloid-β protein and Alzheimer’s disease. Essays in Biochem. 56, 99-110.
Trevor is also very collegiate and has contributed to my undergraduate course on neurodegenerative diseases. It has been a pleasure to work with him over many years.