Dr. Woolf is a neurobiologist who works on pain, neurodegeneration and the regeneration of the injured nervous system. His investigations focus mainly on neuronal plasticity, its mechanistic basis, how it contributes to the normal and abnormal functions of the nervous system, and how it can be a target for therapy. Specifically, he studies neural plasticity in relation to pain, regeneration, neurodegenerative disorders and developmental neurobiology.

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He was appointed Director of the F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center and the Neurobiology Program at Boston Children's Hospital in February 2010. After training for his MD and PhD at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, Dr. Woolf moved to England in 1978. He worked at University College London for close on 20 years, towards the latter part as a Professor of Neurobiology. In 1997, Dr. Woolf moved to Boston as the first incumbent of the Richard J Kitz Chair of Anesthesia Research at Harvard Medical School and established the Neural Plasticity Research Group, based in the Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr Woolf is a faculty member of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School.