February’s talk will be given by Emeritus Prof Kevin Moffat of the School of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick at St Patrick’s Irish Club at 7:30. Kevin will be discussing Alzheimer’s Disease, and all money collected on the night will be donated to the Alzheimer’s Society.

The most common form of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease, devastating for the individual, for families and for society.  There is currently no cure. With over a million people currently in the UK having some form of dementia, and with cost cares rising to over £42 billion, intervention is a priority. Come with Kevin, as he takes you on a journey of science, touching on history and politics. 

The fruit-fly, Drosophila, is arguably the most studied animal other than humans themselves.  Flies share with us important similarities in behaviour, anatomy, genetics and physiology: learning and remembering, aging and degenerating.  However, in this lecture we will look at how we have ‘humanised’ the fly through transgenesis and from this approach what we have learnt about Alzheimer’s disease.  We’ll explore where this has taken Kevin’s research, moving from flies through physical biochemistry to electrophysiology – and hopefully into new targets for the next generation of drug intervention.