Teale Finkel is a Neuroscience (B.S) major at UC Santa Cruz. She is fascinated by the brain and driven by the desire to understand the underlying pathophysiology of neurodegeneration and atypical neurology. Teale is excited to be learning about neuroscience and simultaneously applying the knowledge in research. Currently, she is workingon the heat shock protein-70 project. This project addresses the hypothesis that Alzheimer’s disease canbe characterized as a protein misfolding disease. The project focuses on overexpressing a chaperone protein to diminish and further understand plaque formation. Teale is excited that this research has the capacity to get closer to providing a therapeutic for Alzheimer’s disease.

Teale is fascinated by the physiology of how neuronal change can affect behavior specifically how
plaque formations influence memory and personality. She has worked on behalf of the psychiatric
community and the elderly population in the hopes of actively balancing her understanding of science
and empathy.

In her free time, Teale loves to be soaking up the sun on a backpacking trail or a rugby pitch.