DIETARY INTERVENTIONS INFLUENCING NEUROLOGICAL OUTCOMES
Carolina Blagojevic Castro
Dietician/Nutritionist,
PhD Candidate at Murdoch University, Western Australia &
Research Assistant, Alzheimer’s Research Australia
RESEARCHER PROFILE
Filmed in Perth, Western Australia | September 2024
With over a decade of experience as a dietitian and nutritionist, Carolina Blagojevic Castro specialises in providing personalised dietary guidance and customised meal planning tailored to meet each client’s unique health needs. She is known for her engaging and educational presentations on topics related to health and nutrition, sharing practical, evidence-based insights with both community groups and professional audiences.
Currently, she works as a Nutritionist and Research Assistant at Alzheimer’s Research Australia, supporting studies on the links between diet and cognitive health. This role deepens her expertise in neurology-related nutrition, allowing her to explore how dietary interventions may influence neurological outcomes. She is also a PhD candidate at the Centre for Healthy Ageing at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia, where she merges her hands-on experience with academic research, contributing practical insights to the field of nutritional science. Her research focuses on the interplay between diet and aging, bridging real-world applications and theoretical knowledge to advance the understanding of nutrition’s impact on healthy aging.
In addition to her role at Murdoch University, she holds a postgraduate qualification in Neurological Diseases from Philadelphia University/UniFil in Brazil, further enhancing her capacity to address complex dietary needs. Her commitment to professional development ensures that she stays at the forefront of advancements in nutrition, providing care to her clients and contributing meaningfully to her field.
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Metabolic phenotyping, lipidomics & bioinformatics in dementia
Dr Luke Whiley is a dementia researcher whose work focuses on understanding how the body’s metabolism, particularly the biology of fats known as lipids, influences our health throughout ageing.
His research explores how the body responds to illness, lifestyle, and environmental stress at a chemical level, and how these responses shape longterm disease risk. Using advanced blood-based measurement technologies, Dr Whiley studies thousands of small molecules at once to build a snapshot of a person’s metabolic health. By combining these measurements with data science approaches, his work identifies biological pathways that become disrupted in disease, providing insight into why some people are more vulnerable to conditions such as dementia.
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Funding the best brains to beat brain cancer
The Charlie Teo Foundation is dedicated to funding and advancing research into brain cancer, with a particular focus on developing more effective treatments and finding a cure for this devastating disease.
Since its inception, the foundation has committed nearly $15 million to brain cancer research, funding notable projects in Australia and the United States. These projects explore innovative approaches to understand and treat brain cancer more effectively, with a focus on translating findings from animal studies to human applications. Charlie’s dedication to finding solutions for this devastating disease remains unwavering as he travels frequently to collaborate with global researchers. -
Muscle Cell Communication and Repair
Dr. William Roman is a Group Leader at the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute (ARMI) at Monash University. He obtained his PhD from Paris Descartes University and Freie University of Berlin, focusing on nuclear positioning during skeletal muscle development. Dr. Roman’s research journey has taken him across the globe, including postdoctoral work in Barcelona, tissue engineering in Lisbon, and a brief stint at Stanford University.
At ARMI, Dr. Roman leads innovative research on intercellular communication within muscle organs. His work involves growing human muscles on chips to understand how skeletal muscle cells interact with neurons and tendons. This research aims to develop better models for studying muscle diseases, drug screening, and even applications in cellular agriculture and biorobotics.
