Kouichi Ito, PhD

Dr. Kouichi Ito is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Neurology at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. He received training in molecular immunology as a visiting scientist at MIT and earned his PhD in Immunology from The Jikei University School of Medicine in Tokyo, Japan.

Prior to assuming his position at the medical school, he served as a Laboratory Head in the Department of Immunology at Hoffmann-La Roche (Nutley, NJ) and studied the effects of Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) on the development of autoimmune diseases including Multiple Sclerosis (MS). He also served as the Acting Chief of the Neurological Disease Section in the Neuroimmunology Branch at NIH/NINDS and studied the mechanism of encephalitogenic T cell development using humanized animal models of MS. His group focuses on understanding the pathological mechanisms of initiation and progression in MS using experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), an animal model of MS.

He is currently investigating the link between gut microbiota and development of MS and how neuroinflammation triggers neurodegeneration such as demyelination and axonal loss. His laboratory is also investigating the therapeutic mechanism of FDA-approved disease modifying drugs for MS using specimens derived from MS patients and EAE animal models. His research has been funded by multiple grants from the NIH, Department of Defense, National MS Society, and other foundations.