Dr Kirsten Coupland is a molecular biologist who focuses on determining the origins of neurodegenerative diseases. She completed her PhD in Medicine at UNSW, Australia, for examining the way one’s genes and environment/lifestyle can interact to alter the risk of developing a neurodegenerative disease, such as Parkinson’s. She works as a postdoctoral researcher at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden. Her current work examines an inherited form of vascular dementia for which therapies are being sought.