He completed his undergraduate and medical school training at the University of Michigan and his residency and fellowship training in Neurology/Neuroimmunology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. After time as a junior faculty member in neurology at Johns Hopkins, he returned to the University of Michigan in 2007 to help launch the Holtom-Garrett Program in neuroimmunology. There, he maintains a clinical practice focused on the care of people with immunological disorders affecting the central nervous system, and he directs an active basic science and translational research program that studies interactions between glial (type of brain cell) and inflammatory cells using established pre-clinical models of disease. One project now under active investigation in the Irani Lab focuses on elucidating the various roles of LRRK2 in regulating the function of the immune system.