Dr. Mu-ming Poo is a world-renowned neuroscientist whose distinguished career bridges premier academic institutions across the United States and China. Born in Nanjing, China in 1948 and raised in Taiwan, he completed his undergraduate studies in physics at Tsinghua University in Taiwan in 1970 before earning his PhD in Biophysics from Johns Hopkins University in 1974. His research trajectory shifted from physics to neuroscience during graduate studies when he developed the groundbreaking photobleaching recovery technique for measuring protein mobility in cell membranes. Throughout his illustrious career, he has held faculty positions at leading institutions including UC Irvine, Yale, Columbia, UC San Diego, and UC Berkeley, where he now serves as Paul Licht Distinguished Professor Emeritus in Biology. Demonstrating significant cross-cultural scientific engagement, Dr. Poo restored his Chinese citizenship in 2017 after holding US citizenship for several decades while maintaining his influential research contributions.
Dr. Poo's pioneering research on synaptic plasticity represents fundamental contributions to our understanding of neural communication mechanisms and learning processes, earning him the prestigious Gruber Prize in Neuroscience in 2016. At the Institute of Neuroscience of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, he led the team that achieved the world's first successful cloning of primates using somatic cell nuclear transfer, producing the landmark crab-eating macaques Zhongzhong and Huahua in 2017. His laboratory made seminal discoveries regarding neuron axon growth guidance, the establishment of neuron polarity, and the formation and plasticity of synapses, advancing the fundamental understanding of neural circuit function. Dr. Poo's early methodological innovations in biophysics have remained foundational to cellular neuroscience research, while his more recent work with non-human primates has opened new pathways for understanding complex brain functions.
As a highly influential figure in global neuroscience, Dr. Poo currently serves as Scientific Director of the Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, and Director of the Shanghai Center for Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Technology. He has built a comprehensive non-human primate research program from scratch, establishing an international-standard facility for macaque monkeys and marmosets that supports cutting-edge research in comparative neuroscience. Dr. Poo is an esteemed member of multiple prestigious academies including the Chinese Academy of Sciences, US National Academy of Sciences, and Academia Sinica in Taiwan, and has served on the editorial boards of multiple scientific journals and is currently an editor of Developmental Neurobiology and executive associate editor of National Science Review, but is not listed as a current editorial board member of Neuron. His continued leadership in developing neuroscience infrastructure in China and fostering international scientific collaboration promises to advance brain research and brain-inspired technology for generations to come.
