Shenk was named an American Cancer Society Research Professor (1986-), and was appointed an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (1989–99) during his years at Princeton.
[3] Shenk is a virologist whose work has focused on the DNA tumor virus, adenovirus, and the herpesvirus, human cytomegalovirus.
He has also served as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Virology (1994-2002) and as Chair of the American Society for Microbiology Publications Board (2008–17).
He has also served on not-for-profit boards including the Fox Chase Cancer Center (2009–15)[4] the Hepatitis B Foundation (2012-) and the Blumberg Institute (2015-).
[5] Shenk cofounded several biotech companies, most recently Evrys Bio, LLC, that is developing sirtuin 2 modulators as broad-spectrum antivirals, where he chairs the board of managers (2013-); and PMV Pharma, Inc., that is developing therapeutics designed to reactivate defective p53 tumor suppressor proteins, where he serves on the scientific advisory board (2013-).