Anirvan Ghosh named Head of Discovery for Roche’s CNS

Anirvan Ghosh, Ph.D., has been named Head of Discovery for Roche's Central Nervous System (CNS). In this role he will oversee discovery research in the CNS Disease and Translational Area (DTA) with an emphasis on disorders such as schizophrenia, neurodegeneration, treatment-resistant depression and neurodevelopment disorders.

Roche announced today that Anirvan Ghosh, Ph.D., has been named Head of Discovery for Central Nervous System (CNS). In this role he will oversee discovery research in the CNS Disease and Translational Area (DTA) with an emphasis on disorders such as schizophrenia, neurodegeneration, treatment-resistant depression and neurodevelopment disorders.

Ghosh, who will relocate to Basel, Switzerland, joins Roche’s Pharma Research and Early Development organization (pRED) from the University of California San Diego (UCSD), where he has been the Stephen Kuffler Professor of Neurobiology since 2003; Chair, Neurobiology Section, Division of Biological Sciences since 2008; and Co-Director of the Center for Neural Circuits and Behavior since 2009. Before UCSD, Ghosh was an Assistant Professor and then Associate Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

“With his unique understanding of brain development and neural circuit formation, Anirvan brings world class neurobiological expertise to Roche,” said Luca Santarelli, Head of the CNS DTA. “This expertise is essential in shaping and progressing drug discovery in CNS, which will rely more and more on mechanism-based approaches.”

After earning his BS degree in Physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1985, Ghosh completed his PhD in Neuroscience at Stanford University in 1991 and did his postdoc from 1991 to 1995 in Molecular Neuroscience at Harvard Medical School.

Using a combination of cellular, molecular and electrophysiological approaches, Ghosh’s research aims to understand the development and function of neural circuits, and his lab has made several major contributions to the understanding of mechanisms that underlie neuronal connectivity. These are reflected in Anirvan’s rich publication record, which includes papers in Science, Nature, Neuron, Nature Neuroscience and Journal of Neuroscience.

Ghosh’s work has been honored with a number of awards, including Sloan Research Fellow, Pew Scholar Award, Society for Neuroscience Young Investigator Award, Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and the Kuffler Professorship.