Gerhard did research and taught at the Medical Faculty of the University of Innsbruck, which later became the Medical University of Innsbruck. His research led him to the USA to the National Institute of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, MD and to the Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO. In 1987, he completed his habilitation in Physiology with a focus on cell physiology at the University of Innsbruck. Gerhard also taught as an external lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences Management Center Innsbruck (MCI) in the department of Biotechnology. His areas of expertise are: Cell physiology, epithelial cell- and tissue culture, renal biochemistry, alternatives to fetal calf serum and serum-free cell culture, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) and replacement methods to animal experiments.

At the same time, Gerhard was for many years a member of the task force “Good Cell Culture Practice (GCCP)” of the European Commission. Later he chaired the research advisory board at the Center for Replacement and Complementary Methods to Animal Experiments in Linz, Austria. Since 2017, he has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the ProCare foundation, Zurich, Switzerland. Gerhard is co-author of the method text book “Cell and Tissue Culture”, 8th ed.
Ed. 2021, Springer-Verlag.

Until his retirement in 2018, Gerhard worked at the Institute of Physiology at the Medical University of Innsbruck.