As one of the first investigators to join the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease in 1999, Dr. Finkbeiner is best known for his pioneering work on neurodegenerative diseases. He invented robotic microscopy, a new form of imaging that has helped unravel cause-and-effect relationships in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease), Huntington’s, Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. Dr. Finkbeiner used his robotic microscope to resolve a long-standing puzzle in Huntington’s disease. A study based on results from the microscope became the most-cited paper in the field of neuroscience in the last decade.
Dr. Finkbeiner studies the molecular mechanisms that are responsible for learning, memory, and neurodegeneration. He aims to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms that control memory formation in neurons to discover crucial insights into the development and progression of neurodegenerative diseases—and the memory disorders that often characterize them.