According to Gentry Patrick, you could not have predicted he would become a professor.

“In part because my mom had me at 16 years old,” Patrick said. “I grew up in inner-city, South Central (Los Angeles). I was the first to go to college in my family. Nobody knew about science.”

Patrick is now a full professor and neurobiologist in UC San Diego’s Division of Biological Sciences. His lab studies how the brain turns over proteins that are no longer needed, and how that process is linked to diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

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