Moses V. Chao received his BA degree from Pomona College and his PhD from UCLA in biochemistry. He carried out postdoctoral research at Columbia University with Richard Axel before joining the faculty at Cornell Medical School in 1984. In 1998, he moved to NYU School of Medicine, where he is Professor of Cell Biology, Physiology & Neuroscience and Psychiatry. His laboratory discovered and defined the genes for the Nerve Growth Factor receptor. He was Senior Editor for the Journal of Neuroscience from 2006-2010. He has been Head of the NIH Study Section on Cellular and Molecular Biology of Neurodegeneration and served as Chairman of the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation Scientific Advisory Council; the NICHD Board of Scientific Counselors; and the New York State Spinal Cord Injury Board. He is presently a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Vollum Institute; the Glaucoma Research Foundation; the Simons Foundation and St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. He is a Fellow of the AAAS and a recipient of a Zenith Award from the Alzheimer’s Association, a Jacob Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship.