Born in China, he moved to the U.S. at the age of 11. He obtained a B.A. in Chemistry and Physics from Harvard and a PhD in Chemistry from Stanford. Before joining MIT he served as a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. Feng has been a serial pioneer of disruptive technologies for neuroscience and molecular biology. While at Stanford, Feng pioneered a neuromodulation technology called optogenetics, which enables targeted control of distinct neural circuits in the brain of awake and behaving animals. Most recently, Feng developed transcription activator-like effectors (TALEs), a customizable DNA binding protein for targeted modulation and editing of mammalian genomes. He is deeply committed to the sharing of new technologies through the development of open source reagents and online resources..