Race Against Dementia Mayo Clinic Fellow
Alzheimer Center Amsterdam/Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA
In 2020, Dr Ellen Dicks became the first Race Against Dementia-Mayo Clinic Fellow. Stationed at Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minnesota, USA, she collaborates with the Alzheimer Center Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
Ellen’s interest in memory and the underlying brain processes, were ignited during her biology master’s programme at RWTH Aachen, Germany, where she specialised in biological information processing. She then pursued a PhD at the Alzheimer Center Amsterdam, exploring the association between brain connectivity and cognitive decline observed in Alzheimer’s disease.
“With the excellent mentorship programme, combining both world-leading researchers and industry professionals, this fellowship provides an ideal platform to investigate my research questions.”
Dr Ellen Dicks
Ellen’s research
Ellen is part of a world-class research team developing a new disease model of age-associated neurodegeneration. Using cutting-edge multi-modal functional, structural and molecular neuroimaging and neuropathological data, they study a large population of normal aging individuals and dementia patients.
As a Race Against Dementia Mayo Fellow, Ellen’s research focuses on how measures of brain connectivity interact with – and have downstream effects on – other disease-related processes. The development of these measures, such as biomarkers, is crucial for clinical trial development and understanding the pathological cascade of Alzheimer’s disease.
