Awards & Winners

Eric Kandel

Date of Birth 07-November-1929
Place of Birth Vienna
(Austria)
Nationality Austria
Also know as Eric Richard Kandel
Profession Neuroscientist, Professor, Psychiatrist
Eric Richard Kandel is an American neuropsychiatrist. He was a recipient of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research on the physiological basis of memory storage in neurons. He shared the prize with Arvid Carlsson and Paul Greengard. Kandel, who had studied psychoanalysis, wanted to understand how memory works. His mentor, Harry Grundfest, said, “If you want to understand the brain you’re going to have to take a reductionist approach, one cell at a time.” So Kandel studied the neural system of the sea slug Aplysia californica, which has large nerve cells amenable to experimental manipulation and is a member of the simplest group of animals known to be capable of learning. Kandel is a professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University. He is a Senior Investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He was also the founding director of the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior, which is now the Department of Neuroscience at Columbia University. Kandel's popularized account chronicling his life and research, In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind, was awarded the 2006 Los Angeles Times Book Award for Science and Technology.

Awards by Eric Kandel

Check all the awards nominated and won by Eric Kandel.

2006


2000


Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
(for their discoveries concerning signal transduction in the nervous system)

1999


Wolf Prize in Medicine
(For the elucidation of the organismic, cellular and molecular mechanisms whereby short term memory is converted to a long term form.)

1988


National Medal of Science for Biological Sciences
(For discovering the first cellular and molecular mechanisms contributing to simple learning and memory.)

1987


Gairdner Foundation International Award
(For elucidating the mechanisms of learning and memory in nerve cells.)

1983


Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research
(For his brilliant application of cell biology techniques to the study of behavior, revealing the mechanisms underlying learning and memory.)