Dr. Rando is the Director of the Glenn Laboratories for the Biology of Aging. He is also Chief of Neurology and Director of the Rehabilitation Research & Development Center of Excellence at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System. He is a founding director of the Muscular Dystrophy Association clinic at the Stanford Medical Center. Research in the Rando laboratory focuses on tissue-specific stem cells in aging and disease, and on pathogenetic mechanisms and gene therapy for muscular dystrophies. His research on aging has demonstrated that it is possible to identify biochemical stimuli that can induce stem cells in old tissues to repair injuries as effectively as in young tissues, and this work has broad implications for the fields of regenerative medicine and stem cell transplantation.

Dr. Rando's main areas of interest of the laboratory are muscle stem cell biology (myogenic lineage progression, cell fate determination, asymmetric cell divisions, Notch signaling, Wnt signaling), muscle stem cell aging (epigenetic determinants, local and systemic influences, roles in age-related decline in regeneration and age-related atrophy), muscular dystrophies (disease pathogenesis, biomarkers and non-invasive imaging), tissue engineering (artificial scaffolds, regenerative therapies) and basic muscle cell biology (myogenic differentiation, muscle development). The Rando laboratory is a part of the Glenn Laboratories for the Biology of Aging and the Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine and the Rehab R&D Center of Excellence at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System. The laboratory is associated with the Stanford Center on Longevity (SCL).