Hongkui Zeng, Ph.D.

Senior Scientific Director, Research and Development

Hongkui Zeng joined the Allen Institute in 2006. She leads the Research and Development program to explore novel technologies and develop high-throughput paradigms for generating large-scale, public datasets and tools to fuel neuroscience discovery. Since joining the Allen Institute, she has led the mouse genetics program to generate genetic tools for the study of neural circuitry and function, as well as efforts to understand anatomical and gene expression changes in diseased brains. She has broad scientific experience and a keen interest in using a combined molecular, genetic and physiological approach to unravel mechanisms of brain circuitry and potential approaches for treating brain diseases. Prior to joining the Allen Institute, Zeng worked at a biotechnology start-up where she headed the development of an inducible gene inactivation technology, and a comprehensive behavioral study program to identify novel drug targets and candidate small molecules for the treatment of central nervous system diseases. Zeng received her Ph.D. in molecular and cell biology from Brandeis University, where she studied the molecular mechanisms of the circadian clock in fruit flies. Then as a Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she used conditional transgenic technologies to study the molecular and synaptic mechanisms underlying hippocampus-dependent learning and memory.