Welcome to the Lab

The Gerdts Lab is led by Dr. Josiah Gerdts MD PhD, a neurologist and physician-scientist specializing in autoimmune neurologic disease. The lab is based in the Division of Neuroimmunology and Glial Biology, part of the Department of Neurology in the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences and the UCSF School of Medicine.

We are committed to understanding immune-mediated disorders at the molecular level, with an emphasis on neurologic disease. Multiple sclerosis, autoimmune encephalitis, and many rarer conditions affect millions of people and remain among the most difficult diseases in clinical neurology to predict, diagnose precisely, and treat. Most available therapies work by broadly suppressing the immune system. They help many patients, but they are imprecise, carry real risks, and rarely address the specific process that initiated the disease.

The central problem we study is deceptively simple to state: in autoimmune disease, what is the immune system actually reacting to? T cells are major drivers of tissue damage across autoimmune disease, yet for most conditions the molecular targets they recognize remain unknown. Our lab develops synthetic biology tools that reconstitute patient-derived T cell receptors and identify the antigens they respond to. This work sits at the interface of synthetic biology, immunology, and neurobiology.

Our Mission

Our core philosophy is to advance patient care through molecular understanding of disease. We apply a common discovery strategy across many autoimmune neurologic conditions, working through collaborations that span departments at UCSF. Mapping the antigens that drive these diseases provides the foundation for better diagnostics, prognostic tools, and therapies precise enough to disable disease-driving cells while leaving protective immunity intact.

Partners and Support

We are partnered with the UCSF Center for Encephalitis and Meningitis, the UCSF NGB Cellular Engineering Initiative, and the Cell Design Institute. Our research is supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the NIH, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, the Fondation Leducq, and the UCSF Physician Scientist Scholars Program.