Meet Ying Xia, Alzheimer’s disease researcher

“I didn’t know anyone who had done a PhD, and I never knew much about research,” Ying says.

“Like, what do researchers even do? What do they even study?”

A move to Australia and an internship at the AEHRC changed everything. Now she’s using advanced imaging techniques to tackle Alzheimer’s, a disease that affects thousands of Australians every year.

Lighting the path to research

After completing her undergraduate degree in electric information engineering, Ying worked for an IT company. It only took six months for her to realise this career wasn’t right for her.

“There weren’t many opportunities to think creatively. I just wasn’t inspired by the work, and I felt that I wasn’t achieving much,” Ying says.

Ying made a courageous move. She packed up her life in China and moved to Australia in search of an overseas experience and further study opportunities. She began a Masters degree in electrical engineering at The University of Queensland.

One day she attended a lecture by a CSIRO scientist. The scientist mentioned a vacation scholarship project with the medical image analysis team.

“The deadline to apply had passed, but I sent an email to the group leader anyway and we ended up discussing potential opportunities,” Ying says.

Her persistence paid off. When a spot in the vacation program opened up unexpectedly, Ying was offered the place.

“I remember walking in on the first day and seeing all of the people and all of the paper piled up on desks,” she says.

“My first thought was, ‘so this is what a research lab looks like! I liked everything about research.

“In research you can do something more in life. You can be innovative and develop your own ideas and have control over them. You can achieve something incredible.”

In her first vacation scholarship project, she created a user interface for medical image analysis software. Ying was then offered a PhD position within the group. She has been making valuable contributions to digital health ever since.

Making her mark in medical imagery

During her PhD, Ying developed an algorithm to analyse MRI images of hips and quantify cartilage in the joint. The algorithm used bones as a landmark to identify cartilage, enabling easier measurement than current methods.

It was a good start, but Ying knew she could create something even better. Later in her PhD she developed an alternative measure.

“The algorithm automates parts of the image analysis process to improve consistency and accuracy. The result doesn’t depend on how the radiographer reformats the image or where in the joint the measurement is taken,” Ying says.

“The algorithm is also more reliable than the previous one because it makes measurements based off the 3D image, rather than a 2D view of the joint.”

Spotlight moves from bones to brains

It wasn’t long after she completed her PhD that Ying took on a new challenge. She joined our neuroimaging team and switched her focus to Alzheimer’s disease.

“I’d always been interested in neuroimaging and I saw this as a chance to use my expertise in medical image analysis and MRIs in another way,” she says.

Ying uses her skills in image analysis to pull meaningful information from medical images of the brain. The goal is to find biomarkers, which are signs that correlate with early signs or progression of the disease.

Brain research links with Alzheimer’s

Ying is now leading an Alzheimer’s disease study that recently identified a link between the shrinking of a certain part of the brain, cognitive symptoms and physiological changes.

Her project uses advanced PET imaging techniques to understand the degeneration of brain tissue that produces acetylcholine. This is a key chemical messenger in the brain and the primary brain signalling chemical found in the brain’s cholinergic system.

Lower levels of acetylcholine contribute to the cognitive symptoms of Alzheimer’s, like issues with memory and focus. Drugs that help to maintain acetylcholine are already being used to treat Alzheimer’s, but they only have a modest effect.

“We need to understand the cholinergic system well, so we can identify who will benefit from this type of treatment and when the drug will have the most effect,” Ying says.

“If somebody is experiencing cognitive symptoms but there are no signs of cholinergic degeneration on PET images, it tells us that their cognitive symptoms are likely due to a different kind of dysfunction and these drugs unfortunately won’t be very useful.

“On the other hand, we can look at images of the cholinergic system to identify patients that have signs of decline before cognitive symptoms even appear.”

Ying is enjoying working at the cutting edge of Alzheimer’s research and says she finds the work fulfilling.

“It’s an exciting time in the field. There’s a long way to go, but research is progressing. I’m glad to be contributing to the cause.”