The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. It is the only campus in the 10-campus UC system dedicated exclusively to the health sciences. Memory and Aging Center The mission of the UCSF Memory and Aging Center is to provide the highest quality of care for individuals with cognitive problems, to conduct research on causes and cures for degenerative brain diseases, and to educate health professionals, patients and their families. Grinberg Lab The Grinberg lab, part of the UCSF Memory and Aging Center, is led by Dr. Lea T. Grinberg, a MD/PhD with a background in neuropathology and neuroanatomy. Our goal is to investigate and clarify the basic principles and pathogenesis of aging and early-stage neurodegenerative disease using postmortem human tissue of normal controls and patients as the foundation. Our unique approach allows for simultaneous investigation of several aspects of the complex pathogenesis of neurodegenerative disease putting us in a strategic position for identifying therapeutic targets relevant to the earliest stages of these diseases years before the first clinical manifestations. Seeley Lab The Selective Vulnerability Research Laboratory is led by Dr. William Seeley, a neurologist and neuroscientist who specializes in neurodegenerative disease. Dr. Seeley is based at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center (MAC), part of the Department of Neurology in the UCSF School of Medicine. We study human brain organization in health and use this information to pinpoint how specific neurodegenerative diseases disrupt normal brain functioning. Our laboratory employs two major complementary approaches. Using modern neuroimaging techniques, we map the specific neural networks and regions targeted early in each disease. We then direct our investigations to the cellular and molecular levels with quantitative neuropathological experiments focused and guided by our neuroimaging results. Our goals are to (1) clarify mechanisms of selective vulnerability and disease progression and (2) to develop tools for monitoring change in patients during life. Our work is based on the principle that understanding selective vulnerability will prove helpful, and perhaps even necessary, in the search for effective treatments.