Sophia Galstyan, B.S.

Sophia joined the Bitan lab in the Spring of 2025 as an undergraduate student and received her B.S. in Neuroscience a year later. She was motivated to work on neurodegenerative diseases following her experience playing the piano at a retirement home, where she interacted with various patients who suffered from such diseases. She witnessed how music could bridge gaps in memory, communication, and awareness and became inspired to delve deeper into the science behind brain function and disease. Sophia's first project involved studying how structural modifications influence tau aggregation in tauopathies, in collaboration with the Julian group at UC Riverside. Having completed this project, she now works on the development of small-molecule inhibitors of α-synuclein aggregation and toxicity.