Michael E. Greenberg

Michael Greenberg (born May 25, 1954 in Miami Beach, Florida) is an American neuroscientist who specializes in neurobiology at the molecular level. He is the chairman of the neurobiology department at Harvard Medical School.

Michael Greenberg grew up in Brooklyn, New York and graduated from Wesleyan University (magna cum laude) in 1976. He conducted his Ph.D. research and began his post-doctoral research at Rockefeller University in New York City in Gerald Edelman's laboratory. He later completed his postdoctoral research with Edward Ziff at New York University. During his time in Ziff's lab, he observed that the transcription of c-fos, a cellular proto-oncogene, is induced within minutes of activation by neurotrophic factors. In 1986, he moved to Boston, Massachusetts to take a job in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at Harvard Medical School. He has been the chairman of the Neurobiology Department at Harvard Medical School since 2008. Before becoming chair of the HMS Department of Neurobiology, he was professor of Neurology and Director of the Neurobiology Program at Children's Hospital Boston. He is the author of more than 165 articles in neurobiology and serves on the editorial boards of the following journals, among others: Journal of Neuroscience, Learning & Memory; Neuron; and Molecular & Cellular Neuroscience.

Michael Greenberg has received numerous prizes, including the Edward M. Scolnick Prize in Neuroscience and a McKnight award for technological advances in neuroscience. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the National Academy of Sciences. He has mentored a number of successful neuroscientists, including (but not limited to) Morgan Sheng, David Ginty, Azad Bonni, and Anirvan Ghosh. His lab specializes in the research of activity-dependent transcription in the intracellular signaling of neurons. Areas of interest have included c-fos, CREB, Bdnf, and MeCP2. In general, his research has also explored the molecular biology and genetics of autism spectrum disorders, including the genetic basis of nurturing.