Morgan Sheng is currently responsible for directing neurobiology drug discovery efforts at Genentech and heads the Department of Neuroscience. Prior to joining Genentech in September 2008, Dr. Sheng was the Menicon Professor of Neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as well as Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a professor in MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Department of Biology.
Dr. Sheng received a bachelor of arts in physiology from Oxford University UK, and his medical degree from London University. He also holds a PhD in molecular genetics from Harvard University. Following his postdoctoral work in neuroscience at the University of California, San Francisco, Dr. Sheng served on the faculty at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School before joining MIT.
Dr. Sheng has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (UK), Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (UK), and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He serves on the editorial boards of several scientific journals, including Neuron, Current Opinions in Neurobiology, and Physiological Reviews. He is recipient of the Fondation Ipsen Prize in Neuronal Plasticity, and the Young Investigator Award of the Society for Neuroscience. He is author of more than 150 peer-reviewed publications focused on the molecular mechanisms of brain plasticity (the ability of brain cells and their synaptic connections to change in response to experience).