Joshua Sanes, the Jeff C. Tarr Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, has been named a Fellow of the British Royal Society, one of the highest honors in science. Sanes, who was the founding director of Harvard’s Center for Brain Science (CBS), was recognized for his pioneering research on the formation and specificity of synapses—the connections between neurons that are fundamental to brain function.
Sanes’s election as a Fellow marks a rare and prestigious recognition of a career that has reshaped the scientific understanding of how neurons connect and organize to form functioning circuits in the nervous system. The British Royal Society, established in 1660, is the United Kingdom’s national academy of sciences and includes luminaries such as Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, and Stephen Hawking among its ranks. The distinction is especially notable because only a small number of international scientists, formerly known as foreign members, are elected as Fellows each year.
“It is quite an honor,” Sanes says. “It also is science-wide—this isn’t a neuroscience award, it’s for all of STEM: physics, chemistry, math, biology, engineering.”
Sanes, who will become Professor Emeritus this summer, has made fundamental contributions to neuroscience over his decades-long career. While much of his research has focused on basic science, his discoveries have broad implications for understanding neural development and disorders of the nervous system.
Following graduate work at Harvard Medical School and postdoctoral study at UCSF, Sanes joined the faculty at Washington University in St. Louis. “There,” Sanes says, “we worked on how synapses form, especially at the neuromuscular junction. That system was accessible in ways the brain wasn’t—bigger synapses, fewer types, no need to drill a hole in the skull. We could really look at the molecular dialogue between nerves and muscles that brings synapses together.”
But while the neuromuscular junction provided a clear window into how synapses form, it offered limited insight into how neurons choose specific synaptic partners. That question—how the right synapse is formed in the right place at the right time—led Sanes to the retina, a highly organized and accessible part of the central nervous system.
“In the retina, we could ask more about synaptic specificity,” Sanes explains. “It’s a beautifully arranged system—light comes in, the optic nerve sends the signal out. You don’t have the chaos of all sorts of inputs like in the cortex. And over about 20 years, we tried to figure out which molecules guide the formation of specific synapses.”
That work paved the way for a third major chapter of his career: building a comprehensive cell atlas of the retina. In the mid-2010s, Sanes’s lab became an early adopter and innovator in the application of single-cell RNA sequencing, which allows scientists to classify individual cells based on their gene expression patterns.
“It became more and more apparent that we didn’t know what all the cells in the retina even were,” he said. “And you can’t study specificity if you can’t identify the cells. Around 2015, single-cell RNA-seq came along, and I was lucky to be part of the team that helped develop and apply it to the retina. That allowed us to classify cell types at an unprecedented level of detail.”
The retina atlas work went on to explore evolutionary differences in cell types, changes associated with injury or disease, and comparisons between human and mouse retina—all critical groundwork for future studies in neuroscience and medicine.
Venkatesh Murthy, who succeeded Sanes as Director of the Center for Brain Science, praised his predecessor’s leadership and scientific impact. “My colleagues and I at the Center for Brain Science are thrilled by this recognition from the British Royal Society,” Murthy said. “Josh has had a distinguished career, making fundamental discoveries about the formation and organization of synapses, as well as about the molecular diversity of neuronal cell types. He has been a pillar in the neuroscience community at Harvard, having served as the founding Director of CBS, which has become a world-class collective of neuroscientists under his guidance.”
MCB Chair Rachelle Gaudet adds,” I’m delighted by Josh’s election to the British Royal Society! This richly deserved recognition caps a career that has shaped modern neuroscience through both discoveries and leadership. Josh’s discoveries have illuminated the logic of how neurons form connections in the nervous system – including many of the signaling molecules involved and the cell types that arise. Josh has been a deeply valued member of MCB and his visionary leadership at the Center for Brain Science has helped shape the vibrant neuroscience community we have here at Harvard.”
Sanes joined the Harvard faculty in 2004, bringing with him a vision for interdisciplinary and collaborative neuroscience that helped shape the Center for Brain Science into an internationally respected hub. His arrival also coincided with a pivotal shift in the focus of his research toward retinal circuitry and molecular cell typing.
“Coming to Harvard was helpful for making the transition,” Sanes reflected. “New people, new collaborators—one of the great ones was Marcus Meister, who was then in MCB. It gave me a chance to rethink the work and expand the direction of the lab.”
Although Sanes formally closed his lab and stopped teaching last year, papers continue to emerge from his group’s recent work.
The announcement of Sanes’s election to the Royal Society celebrates not only a decorated scientific career but also the legacy of a leader who helped build a thriving neuroscience community at Harvard and far beyond.
“I’m really excited about this,” Sanes said. “It’s a nice capstone—and it’s wonderful to be in such extraordinary company.”
