Columbia University in the City of New York

Curious Minds: How do Proteins Tangle in the Brain?

A project exploring how proteins turn toxic in the brain brings together two undergraduates with a passion for science.

How do tangled-up proteins contribute to Alzheimer’s and other debilitating brain diseases?

This video, created before the COVID-19 pandemic, follows the research of two undergraduates at Columbia exploring this question. Working in the Fitzpatrick Lab at the Zuckerman Institute, they published their work in a top neuroscience journal in February. Meet Tamta Arakhamia, an aspiring doctor from the country of Georgia, and Christina Lee, whose passion for interdisciplinary research led her to choose science as a career path. Learn about how they used a cutting-edge imaging technology to reveal the structures of molecules that build up in the brains of people with certain neurodegenerative diseases. Meet Anthony Fitzpatrick, PhD, the principal investigator at Columbia’s Zuckerman Institute who mentored these two curious minds.

This video is part of Curious Minds, a video series highlighting students and early-career scientists at Columbia's Zuckerman Institute.

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