Prof. Heneka studied medicine at the University of Tübingen. He received clinical training in Neurology at the University of Tübingen, University of Münster and the University of Bonn. From 2016 to 2021, he directed the Department of Neurodegenerative Diseases and Gerontopsychiatry-Neurology at the University Hospital Bonn and led the Neurodegenerative Disease unit at the Deutsches Zentrum für Neurodegenerative Erkrankungen (DZNE), one of the largest research institutes worldwide to focus on understanding the causes of diseases of the brain and the central nervous system. From January 2022 onwards, he became the Director of the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) at the University of Luxembourg and Principal Investigator in the Neuroinflammation group. LCSB is accelerating biomedical research by closing the link between systems biology and medical research to help understand the mechanisms of complex biological systems and disease processes.

He is further an adjunct professor at the Department of Infectious Diseases and Immunology at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School and the recipient of the Hans und Ilse Breuer Alzheimer Research Award (2013) and of the Christa-Lorenz Award for ALS Research (2011).