The fellowship honours the legacy of former honorary Vice-President of the Alzheimer’s Society, Carol Jennings, who together with her husband Stuart was a passionate global advocate for dementia research, raising awareness and championing progress.
Dr Hardy said: “It’s extremely humbling and motivating to know that the work I’m doing is only possible because of the incredible donations and support that people have given to the Alzheimer’s Society, and I want to repay the faith that people have put in me by funding my research. I plan to do that by working incredibly hard over the next four years to deliver on what I hope to achieve.
“I’m so lucky to be able to go into work each morning to do a job that I love, and what drives me is the hope that my research might help people, now and in the future.”
Carol Jennings’ connection to Alzheimer’s disease began in 1983 when her father was diagnosed with the disease. Within a few years, four of his siblings also received a dementia diagnosis.
Determined to find answers to her family’s fate with dementia, Carol got in touch with Professor Sir John Hardy (UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology) as part of his landmark study into the role of amyloid in Alzheimer’s disease.
Sadly, after years of advocacy, Carol was also later diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and passed away earlier this year.
Dr Chris Hardy joins Dr Johanna Jackson (Imperial College London) who was made the first Carol Jennings Fellow in 2023/24.
With Alzheimer’s Society funding, Dr Hardy plans to investigate how ear and brain-related hearing loss corresponds to brain changes in people with or at risk of dementia.
He will also develop new, culture-and-language-fair tests of brain hearing (the way that the brain naturally processes sound) to help detect, diagnose and track dementia in diverse groups.
Dr Hardy said: “One promising way of identifying dementia early, cheaply, quickly, and easily is by using tests of ‘brain hearing’. Hearing loss is a major dementia risk factor, we hear with our brain as well as our ears, and brain regions that perform difficult hearing tasks are affected very early in Alzheimer’s disease.”
He added: “I feel very fortunate that my research allows me to work directly with people living with and affected by dementia – it’s an immense privilege to meet the people who are the real-life experts of living with the conditions and to learn from their experiences.”
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- Dr Chris Hardy