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NO. 67 JUNE 2019 • Olympian Lauren Burns to speak at Mooroolbark forum • Yarra Ranges Council addresses recycling crisis • Community and schools remember our war heroes Good news stories from your local community Dr Scott Ayton A life lived well I have the privilege of a friendship with a young man who has achieved outstanding success in his chosen field. Dr Scott Ayton, although only in his early 30s, is deputy director of the Melbourne Dementia Research Centre at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health. In that role he heads a team of researchers working in the institute’s Translational Neurodegeneration laboratory. In 2016, Scott received the prestigious Young Researcher of the Year award from the Bethlehem Griffiths Research Foundation. By the time this article is published, the annual Yarra Ranges Mayoral Breakfast on the National Day of Thanks will have taken place. Many of our readers will not have had the opportunity to attend and hear Scott’s address as the 2019 guest speaker. For that reason, I’d like to share with you some of my observations about this young man’s life. I first met Scott when he was one of my students at Templestowe Park Primary School, where I taught music. Last year, when the school named its new STEM centre after Scott, I was privileged to reconnect with him. In subsequent conversations I have discovered that there is one specific characteristic of Scott’s life that has played a substantial role in him becoming the man he is. That characteristic could be described as “reflectiveness”—the intentional space made in daily life for quiet thought. It’s the habit of setting aside regular, undistracted time to carefully consider one’s life—pondering on what might be, and potential pathways to an envisaged future. Scott has thought carefully about life from an early age. He speaks with gratitude and respect for his father, who struggled with the lifelong effects of a motorcycle accident as a young man. “My Dad had an acquired brain injury from a motor cycle accident in his early twenties,” Scott told me. “As a young person I came to understand that Dad had lost about 80 percent of his vision and also suffered from other complications. I admired the way he continued to press on with his life. In spite of his obvious handicaps, he continues to inspire me by the way he managed over 40-odd years to provide for our family from the business he ran. That he just persevered motivates me. I don’t have any handicaps, but I’ve learned through his example that when things get tough, push on, as my father did, despite his challenges.” His father’s difficulties helped Scott become Dr Scott Ayton in the lab with colleague Dr Yen Ying Lim interested in brain science. “I knew that his eyes were OK, but I wanted to understand the way 3 LIVINGTODAY PHOTOS: SUPPLIED PHOTOS: style. “I’m passionate about fostering with uncertainty.” diversity within the team,” Scott explained. “It helps me to keep going when I recall the “Rather than viewing the team as a means to great discoveries in science that frequently serve the ambition of one dominant leading looked silly early on,” continued Scott. “I’m figure, we work together—diverse abilities, encouraged by listening to prominent scientists temperaments, genders, nationalities—all as they muse about their successes and say contributing to a common goal of seeking things like, ‘This didn’t get funded. No one to bring benefit and better treatments for believed this early on.’ But they saw the future people who struggle with neuro-degenerative and they persistently worked towards it.” conditions like dementia.” Scott spoke with gratitude about the funding Scott is grateful for his church, which was that is provided by government for research and that affected pathways in the brain caused his another positive influence from childhood. for the financial support that comes from people impaired vision,” Scott said. “I remember looking “As I grew up into adulthood, I had a wonderful and families affected by particular diseases. He at anatomy textbooks and a brain atlas to try to congregation. I went to Templestowe Baptist. said, “It helps you keep at the forefront of your figure things out. I guess I saw a problem and Some of my best friends attended and I thinking that you’re doing this research to help wanted to see if I could figure out why. I was experienced really tight bonds and community people like them.” starting to discover the process we go through there,” Scott said. “I believe that being active For Scott, each day provides a poignantly in research.” in church leads to being reflective of who you personal reminder of the significance of medical Scott’s mother supported him in anything he are, to challenge yourself to grow and to take research. “My wife was diagnosed with multiple wanted to pursue. “She encouraged me in my a perspective on something that is more than sclerosis while I was still an undergraduate. The music and piano studies. Over ten years or so, I yourself. Growing up within this space is both treatments that were available to her initially learned important lessons, not just about music, inward and outward. And I guess when you’re were not very good. There were many side- but about myself, about life. I learned about how a young person you’re absorbed with self, so effects and only a modest effect in slowing down to receive feedback. I learned about attentive I valued the encouragement to keep looking the disease. It was a really tough time for her listening. I began to learn about how to improve towards other people and at the same time initially.” reflecting on personal weaknesses and growing and how to motivate myself to continue to do But less than a year after Scott’s wife in character—to reflect and to grow.” something that seems very challenging.” Darshini was diagnosed, the first of several “I remember looking at several pieces of One of the joys of Scott’s team leadership new life-changing drugs became available for music initially and thinking, ‘How am I ever going comes from the privilege he feels in working with the treatment of multiple sclerosis. “I found it to play this? There are so many black notes, so and mentoring bright young graduates pursuing difficult to grasp how quickly she responded to many flats and sharps—this is just not going to be their interest in research. I asked about the the treatment, but basically she became a new possible.’ But you learn to give it a go. You figure qualities he believes are necessary for success person,” said Scott. “She had so much more out the first bar, then the second bar, and then in research. energy and more strength. Since then, as some a line. Soon you’ve figured out a page and then “It begins with knowledge and interest. drugs have stopped working for her, she’s been you slowly put things together.” You need to have a real passion and thirst for able to move on to other treatments that have Scott has learned to apply the same process knowledge, along with a deep curiosity about your become available.” to many aspects of life. “It was a life lesson for topic and knowledge in general. But I don’t think Scott said that having access to such me, to chip away at things. Things may appear the amount of knowledge or your intelligence is a treatments has had a major impact on Darshini’s initially confronting, but they’re achievable if deciding factor in terms of success in research. life. “It means that she’s been able to keep you patiently keep working at things. So many That’s just the beginning. Success in research working—and so much human dignity derives things seem impossible at the beginning, until is really about leadership and being able to take from our work,” he said. “But there’s also her someone figures it out.” a field in a particular direction because you see independence. Without these treatments, she value in that.” Scott often applies a phrase he learned from may well be in a wheelchair by now and unable science: “It’s always disaster, until it’s not”. Being continually reflective is something that to work in the manner that she enjoys so much. “That’s as true of a piece of music as it is of a Scott sees as essential. “You need to constantly My wife’s a trooper—she’s an inspiration in research project,” he said. “It doesn’t look like this challenge your thinking and allow yourself to be the way she adjusts to accommodate medical could turn into something until it all comes together challenged by people and to reflect upon those treatments, and the time management and, in the end, you go, ‘Ah! We got there.’” challenges and criticisms, and adjust where necessary to successful management of necessary. But at the same time there’s a need Scott also valued his time in the Scouts, conditions like multiple sclerosis.” for bravery—the capacity to be strong enough to forming important insights for living from those Seeing such improvements in his wife’s not necessarily listen to nay-sayers, when you experiences as well. quality of life, and knowing that she depends believe that you’re on what you believe to be the on progress made through similar research to “I learned a lot about working in teams and right track.” also working with people who are not necessarily his own, motivates Scott even further.

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