Thomas Lane, Ph.D.
Chancellor’s Professor of Neurobiology and Behavior
Tom Lane has been working in the area of multiple sclerosis (MS) research for over twenty years. After completing his Ph.D. research in Microbiology and Immunology at the UCLA School of Medicine, he did his postdoctoral work in neurovirology at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA. Dr. Lane joined the Biological Sciences faculty at UC Irvine in 1998 where he was a Professor of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry, Director of the MS Research Center and Associate Director of the Institute for Immunology. Dr. Lane was awarded a National Multiple Sclerosis Society (NMSS) Collaborative Center Award as well as a CIRM Early Translation Award dedicated to exploring the therapeutic potential of neural stem cells in treating demyelinating diseases. The majority of work performed in Dr. Lane’s laboratory is focused on understanding the immunopathological mechanisms contributing to both disease progression and repair using pre-clinical mouse models of MS. However, Dr. Lane is also interested in immunological deficits associated with spinal cord injury as well as the role of neuroinflammation in contributing to Alzheimer’s disease neuropathology. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Neurobiology & Behavior.