Wei Deng

Wei Deng has worked in the field of pharmacology and toxicology since 2009. In 2002, they began their career as a Research Associate at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, where they studied the cognitive and affective function of adult neurogenesis. During their time there, they generated a Nestin-tk transgenic mouse model to inhibit the proliferation of adult neural stem cells for functional studies and revealed a functional role of adult neural stem cells and their progenies in learning and memory. In 2009, they were promoted to Staff Researcher at the Salk Institute and studied the in vivo network mechanism of dentate granule cells of the hippocampus and associated adult neurogenesis in learning and memory. During this time, they discovered the selection of distinct populations of dentate granule cells in response to environmental inputs as a mechanism for pattern separation, investigated the population activities of adult-born dentate granule cells arising from neural stem cells in pattern separation, and discovered a critical function of adult-born granule cells in maintaining activity sparseness in the dentate gyrus, a key feature for pattern separation. In 2015, they joined Turning Point Therapeutics as a Director of Pharmacology and Toxicology, and then in 2021 they moved to BlossomHill Therapeutics, Inc. as Director of Pharmacology.

Wei Deng holds a Ph.D. in Cell Biology from Duke University, a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Peking University, and a Master of Science in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Arizona.