Professor He Jufang is Head and Chair Professor of Neuroscience of the Department of Neuroscience of City University of Hong Kong (CityU). 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 (3r1) was recently nominated and funded as an Investigation New Drug (IND) for amblyopia. The team works on cholecystokinin receptors or antagonists to help people with extremely aversive experiences or memories, such as patients with posttraumatic stress disorder or depression. 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 CityU in 2018. He was invited to speak at Nobel Symposium #170 in June 2022. 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.