He started his early life as a lecturer in Zoology,
Ravenshaw College,
Cuttack. He then joined Utkal University in Feb. 1961 as a Reader in Zoology and continued teaching for a year. He joined the Department of Zoology at Banaras Hindu University and served as a reader (1962–69) and as a professor (1970–87). He was Head, Department of Zoology (1974–76 and 1980–82), Coordinator of the Center of Advanced Study, and Dean, Faculty of Science (1986) at Banaras Hindu University. Professor Kanungo was founder Director of Institute of Lifesciences, Bhubaneswar in 1989, established by Government of Odisha which was taken over by Department of Biotechnology, Government of India in 2002 and declared a National Centre for excellence in 2003. He served as Emeritus Professor of Banaras Hindu University from 1993 to 2011. He was an active and popular teacher of physiology and biochemistry at Banaras Hindu University for more than 40 years. For research, he took up the problem of ageing to find out the biochemical and molecular changes that occur in the brain and other organs of the rat as a function of age. He made the following original and important findings: not only the levels of several enzymes decrease, but also their isoenzymes change with increasing age; the decrease in their levels can be prevented by administration of steroid hormones whose receptors are present in the brain; decrease in enzyme levels is due to increasing compaction of chromatin that prevents acetylation of histones and decreases transcription; he proposed a model for ageing and showed that trans-acting protein factors that bind to cis-acting elements in the promoter of genes change with age. As signals from the brain cause expression of neurotransmitters in the brain, the neurotransmitter receptors (NT), both excitatory and inhibitory, change with age; also enzymes necessary for synthesis of NT change during the life span of the rat. Kanungo was the founder director of the Institute of Life Sciences of
Government of Odisha at Bhubaneswar. He worked hard with the then chief minister of Odisha, Biju Patnaik, for establishing the institute during the late 1980s which is now a DBT Institute. Until his death, Prof. M. S. Kanungo continued working on topics such as expression of genes and proteins involved in neurotransmission and recycling of neurotransmitters in the brain as a function of age;studying genes and proteins to understand the molecular mechanism involved in the process of learning and memory during ageing;expression of genes involved in formation of blood brain barrier (BBB) as a function of age and under different types of stress. == Promotion of gerontology ==