ISLAND update - December 2025

ISLAND update - December 2025

A message from Professor James Vickers

Dear ISLAND Participants,

Just a note to let you know that I am retiring as Director of the Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre from the end of 2025. I will still be substantially involved in ISLAND from 2026 onwards through an honorary appointment with the university. Retirement should also free me up for more involvement in our community events as well as the research program. It will also give me time to work on my own risk factors related to continued brain health!

It has been a great year for ISLAND, particularly with a number of publications arising from the range of studies within the overall study, as well as the successful collection of blood samples from participants across the state. We are very grateful to all participants for their commitment to this program from 2019, and we look forward to engaging with you again through 2026.


2025 recap

As we end 2025 we would like to thank you for another successful year of the ISLAND Project. We are always extremely grateful for the ISLAND community and have enjoyed getting out and seeing many of you throughout the year.

Some 2025 highlights include:

- 2479 ISLAND members completed the October surveys

- 1605 members participated in CANTAB cognitive tests

- 1052 members donated blood samples (these have been split into 26,300 individual tubes!)

- 670 members donated hair samples and 750 donated saliva samples (that's 5.5 litres of saliva!), through the Resilience Initiative 

- 150 members were given access to their personal genetic, biological and cognitive risk profile through the INSIGHT project

- 132 members engaged with higher education through the Campus Study

- 16 new research papers were published using the ISLAND data set

Together, we are making real impact in the field of dementia prevention. Thank you for showing up and being involved in this important work.


2025 webinars and other recordings

Thank you to those of you who attended our recent webinars. We hope you found them informative and left with your questions answered.

You can find recordings at the links below:

ISLAND End of Year Update Webinar

ISLAND Campus Webinar

We have also updated our website so that you can find all our previous recordings under the 'News & Events' tab. These include ISLAND in person talks and webinars and St Luke's seminars. Click here to take a look: News & Events