Julien Bensalem

Dr. Julien Bensalem is an affiliate Senior Lecturer with the Adelaide Medical School at the University of Adelaide and a post-doctoral researcher in the Lysosomal Health in Ageing group at SAHMRI's Hopwood Centre for Neurobiology.

He completed his PhD in Nutrition in 2014 at the University of Bordeaux, France, focusing on polyphenols' effects on age-related cognitive decline. After his PhD, he worked as a research project manager for a French company developing nutritional plant extracts while continuing postdoctoral research at the Laboratory of Nutrition and Integrative Neuroscience in Bordeaux. He joined SAHMRI in 2018 under Dr. Tim Sargeant's supervision.

His research centers on how nutrition can combat dementia by enhancing autophagy (the cell's self-cleaning system) and how autophagy relates to age-related diseases including diabetes and cardiovascular conditions. A key achievement is developing the first blood test to measure autophagic activity in humans, bridging preclinical knowledge with clinical applications.

Research focus areas include:

• Nutritional interventions for neurodegenerative diseases
• Autophagy mechanisms in brain health
• Biomarker development for dementia
• Nutrition-autophagy relationships in cardiovascular disease
• Translational approaches from preclinical models to human applications

Dr. Bensalem is eligible to supervise Masters and PhD students and aims to develop treatment strategies that protect autophagy function in brains of individuals at risk for Alzheimer's disease.