Since 2013, Franck Polleux is a Professor of Neuroscience at Columbia University and an Investigator at the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute in New York. He obtained his PhD in 1997 at Université Claude Bernard in Lyon France. He then did his postdoctoral training with Anirvan Ghosh at Johns Hopkins University. From 2002-2010, he started his independent research career at UNC-Chapel Hill, then moved to Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA. 

Throughout his scientific career spanning three decades, Dr Polleux has focused on the identification of novel cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the development and function of synapses, neurons and circuits in the mammalian neocortex. More recently, his lab started studying the genetic basis of human brain evolution by focusing on the role of human-specific gene duplications as genetic modifiers of synaptic connectivity, circuit function and their impact on cognition. His work demonstrates that human-specific genes do not only represent human-specific modifiers of brain evolution but also represent unique human-specific disease modifiers in the context of neurodevelopmental disorders. In collaboration with the lab of Attila Losonczy, he is also studying the synaptic and molecular basis of feature selectivity using mouse CA1 hippocampal pyramidal neurons as a model.

For his numerous scientific contributions, he was awarded several prestigious awards such as the Albert L. Lehninger Research Prize for postdoctoral research, the 2005 NARSAD Young Investigator Award, the 2015 Foundation Roger De Spoelberch Prize, the 2021 Nomis Foundation Research Award and the 2021 R35 Research Program Award- a career award from the NIH-National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS).