News / Sponsored Feature
Laura is no ordinary Bank Manager. Her bank is no ordinary bank.
Dr Laura Palmer is the Bank Manager at the South West Dementia Brain Bank. One of just six such dementia research centres in the UK. The bank stores donated brains for use in dementia research. In 2022 alone the Brain Bank provided 11,696 samples to researchers across the world. That’s one sample sent globally every 44
minutes!
Bank Manager – BRACE
Despite every breakthrough in dementia research using donated tissue provided by people like Laura, she is facing redundancy.
It costs more than £2,000 to retrieve and store one brain. The tissue must be stored at minus 80 degrees and each freezer costs £12,000. Each donated brain can be stored for decades, supporting research for 10, 20 years or more. Storing one brain for just five years costs more than £9,500. These prices and the unpredictability of funding means that every 12 months, Laura and her colleagues are put through a redundancy process.
This Bank cannot apply for a loan or an overdraft. When the money is gone, so is the dementia research.
They do not receive government funding and depend on charities like BRACE. Researchers, like Laura, at the Brain Bank need continued funding to make their work possible. One in three people born in the UK this year will develop dementia in their lifetime. The need for dementia research is greater than ever. During this period of instability, if you can, please help us secure Laura’s work, for another 12 months. Thank you. To donate online: www.alzheimers-brace.org/donations/support-lauras-work/
BRACE is a small charity with a big impact. Located at Southmead hospital they fund vital research across the South West of England and Wales that could one day defeat all types of dementia, a devastating set of diseases affecting almost one million people in the UK. You can find out more about the charity’s work on their website www.alzheimers-brace.org/
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