Howard E. Gendelman, MD

Margaret R. Larson Professor of Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases
Chair, Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Neuroscience

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Phone: 402-559-5478

Laboratory of Howard E. Gendelman, MD

Dr. Howard E. Gendelman is the Margaret R. Larson Professor of Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases, Chairman of the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Neuroscience, and Director of the Center for Neurodegenerative Disorders at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Dr. Gendelman is credited in co-developing ultra long antiretroviral medicines and in demonstrating the role of brain immunity in neural cell damage. The consequent pharmacologic and immune transformative therapeutics were aimed at preventing, treating, slowing, or reversing infectious and degenerative neural maladies. All are considered transformative. He is credited for the demonstration that AIDS dementia is a reversible metabolic encephalopathy. He is a co-founder of Exavir Therapeutics, Inc.

Dr. Gendelman obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Natural Sciences and Russian Studies from Muhlenberg College and his MD from the Pennsylvania State University-Hershey Medical Center where he was the 1999 Distinguished Alumnus. He completed a residency in Internal medicine at Montefiore Hospital, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and was a Clinical and Research Fellow in Neurology and Infectious Diseases at Johns Hopkins Medical Center. He occupied faculty and research positions at the Johns Hopkins, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences Center, the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, and the Henry Jackson Foundation before joining the University of Nebraska Medical Center faculty in March of 1993. He retired from the US Army with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Dr. Gendelman has authored over 600 peer-reviewed publications, edited 12 books and monographs, holds 132 patents, is the Editor-In-Chief and Founder of the Journal of Neuroimmune Pharmacology (until 2021) and currently NeuroImmune Pharmacology and Therapy along with service on fifteen editorial boards, national and international scientific review and federal and state committees. He has been an invited lecturer to more than 300 scientific seminars and symposia and the recipient of numerous local, national, and international honors. He is considered a luminary of the Nebraska Research Community and attested by his receipt of the Henry L. Moses Award in Basic Science; the Carter-Wallace Fellow for Distinction in AIDS Research, the David T. Purtilo Distinguished Chair of Pathology and Microbiology; the Margaret R. Larson Professor of Infectious Diseases and Internal Medicine; being named a Nebraska Pioneer; a UNMC Scientist Laureate; a NU Outstanding Research and Creativity Award winner, the 2013 UNMC Innovator of the Year, the 2014 Outstanding Faculty Mentor of Graduate Students; the Life Saver Award from the Nebraska Coalition for Lifesaving Cures, the Intellectual Property, Innovation and Commercialization Award; and the Pioneer in Neurovirology Award by the International Society for NeuroVirology.

He is the current President of the Society on NeuroImmune Pharmacology. The humanitarian of the year award was bestowed on him by the Jewish Federation of Omaha. The society granted him the Joseph Wybran, Herman Friedman, and Lifetime Service Awards. Dr. Gendelman was also named a J. William Fulbright Research Scholar at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. In 2001. He received the Jacob Javits Neuroscience Research Award from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and the Career Research Award in Medicine from the Department of Internal Medicine, UNMC. He enjoys a current Hirsch Index of 119 included amongst a selective scientific group listed on highly cited.com as one of the top-cited scientists in his field.

Current Projects

The current and longer-range goals of the laboratory are to develop antiretroviral, immune transformative, gene editing and theranostic agents to improve the diagnosis, treatment and “cure” options for viral and neurodegenerative diseases.