In Adelaide, a neuroscientist has received significant national funding to study one of the brain's quietest and most consequential processes — its ability to recognise and discard its own damaged parts. Dr Julian Carosi's five-year investigation into autophagy, the cellular waste-disposal system, asks why this ancient biological intelligence sometimes fails, allowing toxic proteins like Tau to accumulate and unravel the mind. At a moment when ageing populations are confronting rising dementia rates, his work represents a turn toward prevention — not fighting the disease once it has taken hold