Joshua Sanes

His research involves an interdisciplinary approach which focuses mainly on the formation of synapses at the neuromuscular junction by combining the sciences of psychology, chemistry, biology, and engineering to study these circuits and employ molecular and genetic imaging to understand their function.

During high school, this interest led him to work in a laboratory at the Buffalo Children's Hospital under the microbiologist Robert Guthrie.

Professor Sanes' early research focused on the NMJ (neuromuscular junction); he was in particular interested in a protein that emanated from the motor neuron, agrin.

An important discovery he made in the field of neuroscience earlier in his career were the signals discovered in the extracellular matrix that were found to be crucial in organizing the synapse.

Additionally, over his career, Sanes has been a part of hundreds of published papers involving the study of synapses from molecular and embryological perspectives.

He served on the National Advisory Council of the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke, the Council of the Society for Neuroscience, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, the Klingenstein Neuroscience Fund, the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Association, the Stowers Institute, and the Searle Scholars Fund.