Zane Farnum

Ever since my first experience with Science in primary school I was always fascinated with the subject and, once I entered high school, I was so excited when I saw it was its own subject!

My inspiration to study medical research was not a happy one. In Year 11, my uncle sadly passed away from Dementia. Dementia is a disabling condition in the brain that causes a person to forget faces of friends and family, as well as losing the ability to look after themselves. Seeing him suffer from this harsh condition made me determined to keep studying so one day I might help find a cure.

I am studying how stress can impact our brain to cause symptoms of a subset of Dementia called Alzheimer’s Disease. To do this, I not only study neurons (which are brain cells that communicate with each other to control our memory and how we move), but I study nose cells called ‘olfactory neuroepithelium’! These nose cells connect to the brain to transmit out sense of smell and are involved in Alzheimer’s Disease. I grow these tiny nose cells in plastic dishes and then stress them out in different ways. I measure what the nose cells do when they get stressed, which helps tell me what they might be doing in a person who is sick.

The part of my research I love the lost is that my work could help others. No one should have to suffer from Dementia like my uncle did, but I have hope that my research and the research of thousands of other scientists all over the world will one day make Dementia a condition of the past.