Ricardo A. Feldman, PhD received his doctorate degree from the Department of Cell Biology at New York University School of Medicine and did his postdoctoral work in Hidesaburo Hanafusa’s laboratory at the Rockefeller University, where he identified some of the first tyrosine kinase oncogenes captured by RNA tumor viruses. Feldman is now an Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. His laboratory uses patient-derived iPSCs to study the molecular mechanisms by which mutations in GBA1 lead to neurodegeneration in Gaucher and Parkinson’s disease (PD). Using this system, his laboratory has recapitulated pathological hallmarks in the affected cell types and identified key developmental and lysosomal pathways affected by the sphingolipid imbalance caused by mutant GBA1. Feldman’s laboratory has developed sensitive assays to identify new therapeutic targets, and to evaluate the therapeutic efficacy of promising drugs to treat Gaucher and GBA1-associated PD.