Professor He Jufang is Head and Chair Professor of Neuroscience of the Department of Neuroscience, Chair Professor of Department of Biomedicine at City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK). He was previously Director of the Hong Kong-Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) Joint Laboratory, funded by the Croucher Foundation and the CAS.
He combines electrophysiological, anatomical and engineering approaches to understand hearing, learning and memory. Professor He is involved in drug development for brain disorders, like Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy, tinnitus, amblyopia and depression. The drug development projects are carried out in collaboration with the Hong Kong Institute of Science and Innovation, CAS. His team discovered the most important chemical – cholecystokinin – for memory encoding and neuroplasticity in the brain. It focuses on synthesising small-molecule agonists to help patients with Alzheimer’s disease, amblyopia and tinnitus. One of their drug candidates (Neu-001) was recently received Investigation New Drug (IND) approval for amblyopia from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and from the Chinese National Medical Products Administration. A few more drug candidates are in the pipeline aiming for IND nominations.
Professor He was selected as one of the “Distinguished Young Scholar” by the National Natural Science Foundation of China in the 2006 Joint Research Fund for Hong Kong and Macau Young Scholars, and as a recipient of the Croucher Senior Research Fellowship in 2010. He was the inaugural Chair of the Gordon Research Conference on Neuroplasticity of Sensory Systems in 2018. He received the "President’s Award" at CityUHK in 2018. He was invited to speak at Nobel Symposium #170 in June 2022. Professor He was recently invited to have the presentation at the IAS Symposium, the 2025 Circuit Tracing and Regulation Conference, the Cutting-Edge Technology in Neuroscience Cell and Gene Therapy Conference, the International Conference on Synaptic Development and Brain Diseases, and the 14th Guangzhou International Conference on Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine. Professor He’s research has also been supported by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council, the Innovation and Technology Fund, the Health and Medical Research Fund, and the Ministry of Science and Technology, China.