Dr. Clelland, PhD, MD, MPhil, is an Assistant Professor in the UCSF Department of Neurology. As a neurologist, she specializes in caring for patients with dementia and cognitive symptoms at the UCSF Memory & Aging Center. Her lab at the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences develops novel therapies for neurodegenerative diseases. Her current work centers on creating novel CRISPR gene therapies for genetic forms of dementia and ALS, utilizing patient iPSCs to model disease, advanced sequencing technologies and cutting-edge CRISPR technologies to develop first-in-class gene therapies for CNS diseases. As part of this effort she co-Chairs the NIH Somatic Cell Genome Engineering Consortium Steering Committee. Dr. Clelland is the recipient of two national awards for junior faculty - The Alzheimer’s Association & NACC New Investigator Award and the American Neurologic Association’s Grass Foundation Award in Neuroscience. The Clelland lab is committed to promoting equity and justice in science in medicine. One of the pillars of the Clelland lab is the mentoring and advancement of trainees from underrepresented backgrounds to become the next generation of scientific leaders.