Dr. Cheng obtained his medical degree from McGill University and then subsequently completed his residency in internal medicine at the University of British Columbia. He then returned to McGill to complete a combined fellowship in infectious diseases and medical microbiology. Afterwards, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Harvard Medical School-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute before establishing his clinical research program at the McGill University Health Centre.

His research program is funded by research operating grants from the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research and the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council. His research focuses on patients with potentially lethal infections, including those with severe manifestations of sepsis, bloodstream infections and opportunistic infections in immunocompromised hosts.

He has received numerous awards including Top Influential Article in Blood Advances (2021) and the prestigious Terry Fox Humanitarian Award.