Eric Kandel

Eric Kandel
Born	Erich Richard Kandel 7 11, 1929
Birthplace	Vienna, Austria
Nationality	American
Occupation	Neuroscientist, psychiatrist, professor
Title	University Professor Emeritus
Employer	Columbia University
Known for	Physiological basis of memory storage in neurons
Education	Harvard University (BA), New York University (MD)
Spouse(s)	Denise Kandel
Children	2
Awards	Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2000), Kavli Prize in Neuroscience (2000), Los Angeles Times Book Prize (2006)

Eric Richard Kandel (born Erich Richard Kandel; November 7, 1929) is an Austrian-born American neuroscientist and psychiatrist who has spent more than six decades unraveling the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying learning and memory. Born into a Jewish family in Vienna, Kandel fled Austria with his family following the Nazi annexation in 1938, eventually settling in the United States, where he would build one of the most consequential careers in modern neuroscience. His research on the marine snail Aplysia californica demonstrated for the first time that learning produces changes in the strength of synaptic connections between neurons and that these changes involve specific molecular signaling pathways. For this work, he was awarded the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which he shared with Arvid Carlsson and Paul Greengard. A professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, Kandel served as the founding director of the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior (now the Department of Neuroscience) at Columbia University in 1975 and was a Senior Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute from 1984 to 2022. He currently serves on the Scientific Council of the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation.

Early Life

Erich Richard Kandel was born on November 7, 1929, in Vienna, Austria, into a Jewish family. He grew up in Vienna during the politically turbulent 1930s, a period that would leave a profound and lasting mark on his intellectual trajectory. In his Nobel biographical essay, Kandel noted that "there was little in my early life to indicate that an interest in biology would become the passion of my academic career," reflecting on a childhood shaped more by the upheavals of European history than by any early exposure to science.

The events of 1938 proved decisive for the Kandel family. Following the Anschluss—Nazi Germany's annexation of Austria in March of that year—the family faced escalating persecution. The young Kandel experienced firsthand the anti-Semitic violence and discrimination that swept through Vienna. These traumatic childhood experiences, including the confiscation of his family's apartment and possessions, left deep impressions that would later inform his scientific interest in how memories are formed and stored in the brain.

In 1939, Kandel and his family fled Austria and emigrated to the United States, joining the wave of Jewish refugees escaping Nazi persecution in Europe. The family settled in the New York City area, where the young Kandel began the process of adapting to a new country, a new language, and a new culture. In interviews, Kandel has spoken about his early impressions upon arriving in America and the contrast with the world he had left behind in Vienna. The experience of displacement and the memories of his Viennese childhood would become recurring themes in both his personal reflections and his scholarly work, serving as what he has described as an enduring motivation for his study of memory.

Education

Kandel pursued his undergraduate education at Harvard University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree. It was during his time at Harvard that his intellectual interests began to coalesce around questions of the mind and behavior. His path to neuroscience was, by his own account, an unusual one, passing through an initial interest in history and psychoanalysis before arriving at laboratory research.

He subsequently enrolled at the New York University School of Medicine, where he earned his Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree. His medical training provided a foundation in clinical psychiatry, and it was during this period that Kandel became increasingly interested in understanding the biological underpinnings of mental processes. The transition from psychoanalytic thinking to a more empirical, neurobiological approach to the mind represented a pivotal shift that would define his career. His medical education at NYU positioned him at the intersection of clinical psychiatry and basic neuroscience, a dual perspective he maintained throughout his subsequent research career.

Career

Early Research and the Aplysia Model

Kandel's scientific career was animated by a fundamental question: how does the brain store memories? Rather than attempting to study memory in the enormously complex mammalian brain, Kandel made the strategic decision to investigate the problem using a simpler organism—the marine snail Aplysia californica. This organism possessed a relatively simple nervous system with large, identifiable neurons, making it possible to study the cellular and molecular changes associated with learning at the level of individual nerve cells.

Through a series of elegant experiments conducted over several decades, Kandel and his colleagues demonstrated that learning involves changes in the strength of synaptic connections between neurons. They showed that short-term memory involves functional changes in existing synapses—specifically, modifications in the amount of neurotransmitter released—while long-term memory requires the synthesis of new proteins and the growth of new synaptic connections. This work provided the first clear molecular account of how different forms of memory are encoded in the nervous system.

Kandel's research revealed that the signaling molecule cyclic AMP (cAMP) and the enzyme protein kinase A (PKA) play central roles in the conversion of short-term memory to long-term memory. His laboratory further demonstrated that the transcription factor CREB (cAMP response element-binding protein) is critical for the gene expression required for long-term synaptic changes. These findings, initially established in Aplysia, were subsequently shown to be conserved across species, including mammals, establishing fundamental principles of memory storage that apply broadly across the animal kingdom.

Columbia University and the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior

Kandel joined the faculty of Columbia University, where he became a professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. In 1975, he founded the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior at Columbia, which he served as its inaugural director. This center, which later became the Department of Neuroscience at Columbia University, grew into one of the preeminent neuroscience research and training programs in the world.

At Columbia, Kandel built an extensive research program and mentored generations of neuroscientists. Among his notable students were James H. Schwartz, Tom Carew, Kelsey C. Martin, Priya Rajasethupathy, Scott A. Small, and Christopher Pittenger, many of whom went on to establish significant independent research careers in neuroscience and related fields.

Kandel held the rank of University Professor at Columbia, one of the university's highest academic distinctions. He continued active research and teaching at Columbia for decades, becoming a central figure in the institution's scientific community. In June 2022, Columbia University announced that Kandel would retire on August 31, 2022, describing him as a "beloved University citizen." Following his retirement, he was designated University Professor Emeritus.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute

From 1984 to 2022, Kandel served as a Senior Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), one of the most prestigious research appointments in American biomedical science. The HHMI appointment provided sustained funding and resources that enabled Kandel's laboratory to pursue ambitious, long-term research programs on the molecular biology of memory. During his nearly four decades as an HHMI investigator, Kandel's laboratory continued to make foundational discoveries about synaptic plasticity, memory consolidation, and the molecular mechanisms that distinguish different forms of learning.

The Nobel Prize

In 2000, Eric Kandel was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discoveries concerning "signal transduction in the nervous system." He shared the prize with Swedish pharmacologist Arvid Carlsson, who was recognized for his work on dopamine signaling, and American neuroscientist Paul Greengard, who was honored for his research on how signal transduction operates in nerve cells.

The Nobel Committee recognized Kandel specifically for elucidating the physiological basis of memory storage in neurons. His work demonstrated that the strengthening and weakening of synapses—the junctions between nerve cells—constitutes the cellular mechanism of learning, and that specific molecular pathways mediate the transition from short-term to long-term memory. The prize acknowledged not only the intrinsic importance of these discoveries but also their implications for understanding neurological and psychiatric conditions involving memory dysfunction, including Alzheimer's disease and age-related cognitive decline.

Writing and Public Engagement

Beyond his laboratory research, Kandel has been a prolific author and an active public communicator of science. His memoir and popular science book, In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind, published in 2006, chronicled both his personal journey—from his childhood in Vienna to his Nobel Prize–winning research—and the broader development of the modern science of memory. The book was awarded the 2006 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Science and Technology.

Kandel also co-authored the widely used neuroscience textbook Principles of Neural Science, often referred to as the "bible" of neuroscience by students and researchers in the field. The textbook, which he co-authored with James H. Schwartz and later Thomas M. Jessell, has gone through multiple editions and remains a standard reference work in neuroscience education.

Kandel has been a frequent participant in public discussions about the brain, memory, and the relationship between science and society. He appeared on programs such as Charlie Rose to discuss neuroscience and related topics.

Personal Life

Eric Kandel is married to Denise Kandel, PhD, who herself had a distinguished career as a researcher at Columbia University. Denise Kandel is an epidemiologist whose studies of drug use and addiction gained significant recognition in the field. She retired from Columbia's Department of Psychiatry in 2022, the same year as her husband. The couple have two children.

Kandel has spoken and written extensively about his identity as a Jewish refugee from Austria and the lasting impact of his childhood experiences in Vienna on his intellectual and personal development. The memory of the Nazi persecution his family endured has remained a central theme in his public reflections, and he has drawn explicit connections between his personal history and his scientific fascination with how memories are formed, stored, and recalled.

He has maintained a connection to Vienna throughout his life. The city and its institutions have, in turn, acknowledged his legacy. In a notable gesture, the Medical University of Vienna (MedUni Wien) named its new Center for Precision Medicine the "Eric Kandel Institute," with the building reaching its topping-out stage in September 2025.

Recognition

Eric Kandel's contributions to neuroscience have been recognized with numerous awards and honors throughout his career, in addition to the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

He was a recipient of the Kavli Prize in Neuroscience, one of the major international awards in the field. He also received the National Academy of Sciences Award in the Neurosciences, recognizing his extraordinary contributions to the understanding of the nervous system.

Kandel was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2013, one of the highest honors in the international scientific community. He is also a member of the American Philosophical Society, which awarded him the Benjamin Franklin Medal.

His literary work also earned recognition: In Search of Memory received the 2006 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Science and Technology, introducing his research and personal story to a broad general audience.

In February 2023, colleagues at Columbia University gathered to honor Kandel's contributions to the institution and to the field of neuroscience with a special program and exhibit. The naming of the Eric Kandel Institute – Center for Precision Medicine at MedUni Vienna further cemented his legacy in his city of birth.

Additionally, the renaming of the Dr. Karl-Lueger-Ring in Vienna, a street previously named after a mayor known for anti-Semitic rhetoric, was a subject in which Kandel's life story and the broader history of Viennese Jewish refugees played a role in public discussion.

Legacy

Eric Kandel's work fundamentally transformed the study of learning and memory from a largely psychological and behavioral discipline into a molecular and cellular science. Before his research, the mechanisms by which the brain stores information were largely a matter of speculation. His experiments on Aplysia established that memory has a physical, molecular basis at the level of individual synapses and that specific biochemical pathways—involving cAMP, protein kinase A, and the transcription factor CREB—are required for the formation of long-term memories. These principles proved to be conserved across species, from sea slugs to mammals, establishing a universal framework for understanding memory at the molecular level.

The institutional structures Kandel built have had lasting impact. The Department of Neuroscience at Columbia University, which he founded as the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior in 1975, remains a leading center for neuroscience research and education. His textbook, Principles of Neural Science, has educated generations of neuroscientists and physicians and continues to serve as a foundational text in the field.

Kandel's personal narrative—a Jewish child who fled the Nazis, came to America as a refugee, and went on to win the Nobel Prize—has resonated beyond the scientific community. His memoir, In Search of Memory, connected the story of modern neuroscience to the broader currents of twentieth-century European history, demonstrating how personal experience can drive scientific inquiry.

The construction of the Eric Kandel Institute – Center for Precision Medicine at the Medical University of Vienna represents a tangible symbol of reconciliation and recognition, linking Kandel's name permanently to the city from which his family was forced to flee. His career stands as a testament to the contributions of refugee scientists to American and global science, and his discoveries continue to inform research into neurodegenerative diseases, psychiatric disorders, and the fundamental nature of human cognition.