Jing-Ke Weng

Jing-Ke Weng is Co-Founder of Double Rainbow. Currently, he is a member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, and an Associate Professor of Biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Weng’s work explores plant chemistry and biochemistry to tackle human diseases, including cancer, metabolic syndromes and neurode­gen­er­a­tive conditions. His research focuses on understanding the origin and evolution of plant specialized metabolism at enzyme, pathway, and systems levels, as well as how plants exploit discrete small molecules to interact with their surrounding biotic and abiotic environments. As of May 2021, his work has been featured in over 120 publications, and cited more than 5,000 times.

He has won numerous awards including the Beckman Young Investigator Award (2016), Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow (2016), Searle Scholar (2015), Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences (2014), American Society of Plant Biologists Early Career Award (2014), and Tansley Medal for Excellence in Plant Science (2013).

Dr. Weng received his B.S. (2003) in Biotechnology from Zhejiang University, China, and his Ph.D. (2009) in Biochemistry from Purdue University. He was a pioneer postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and Howard Hughes Medical Institute between 2009 and 2013. Dr. Weng has served as a scientific advisor for Galixir, Inari Agriculture, BGI and Phylos Bioscience.