John Ngai, a professor at the University of California-Berkeley, will formally join the National Institutes of Health in March as director of the agency's large-scale program that aims to further understanding of human brain functions through neuroscience tools and insights.
He will manage the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies initiative as the agency works to address the objectives of its next five-year strategy, NIH said Wednesday.
“Recent technological and scientific advances are transforming our understanding of the brain,” Ngai said.
“I am deeply inspired by these advances and look forward to my new role in enabling BRAIN Initiative investigators to unlock the secrets of the brain and lay new foundations for treating human brain disorders," he added.
Ngai, who joined UC Berkeley in 1993, is the university's Coates Family Professor of Neuroscience and also is director of the Functional Genomics Laboratory in the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences.
He previously served as co-chair of the NIH BRAIN Initiative's Cell Census Consortium Steering Group.