Eric Kandel, Nobel Laureate In Medicine, To Speak At Institute For Advanced Study
Eric Kandel, Nobel Laureate in Medicine, will speak on “Molecular Mechanisms for the Establishment and Perpetuation of Memory Storage” on October 29 at 4:30 p.m. in Wolfensohn Hall on the campus of the Institute for Advanced Study. Kandel is University Professor at Columbia University’s Center for Neurobiology and Behavior, and Senior Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His 2000 Nobel Prize, shared with A. Carlsson and P. Greengard, was for “discoveries concerning signal transduction in the nervous system.”
Kandel plans to discuss a general molecular mechanism, which emerged from studies of sea slugs and mice, “whereby a transient short-term memory is converted into a stable, self-maintained, long-term memory.” He will consider “cellular mechanisms in the mouse whereby a long-term explicit memory for space is perpetuated by means of selective attention during acquisition.” Finally, he says, “I will consider a novel molecular mechanism for self-sustaining perpetuation of memory storage.”
Kandel, who received his B.A. from Harvard University and his M.D. from New York University, was a resident in psychiatry and then staff psychiatrist at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center before turning his attention to neurobiology in an
effort to understand the biological underpinnings of psychological phenomena. He joined the faculty of the Departments of Physiology and Psychiatry at New York University in 1965. In 1974 he became professor in the Departments of Physiology and Psychiatry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, where he directed the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior from 1974 to 1983. He was named to the Hughes Institute in 1984, and to his current professorship in 1983.
His research has been documented in hundreds of journal articles since the 1960s, most recently in Neuron, Learning and Memory, Cell, and Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. He is editor (with J.H. Schwartz and T.M. Jessell) of Principles of Neural Science, now in its fourth edition.
The recipient of numerous awards, Kandel’s honors include the Wolf Prize in Biology and Medicine, the Dana Award for Pioneering Achievement in Health (with P. Greengard), the New York Academy of Medicine Award, the Gerard Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Neuroscience, and the National Medal of Science.
His honorary society memberships include the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the National Institute of Medicine, and the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, as well as several scientific societies in Austria, Greece, France, and elsewhere. He also holds honorary degrees from American and European universities.
The lecture is sponsored by the Institute’s Center for Systems Biology, which is led by Arnold Levine, Visiting Professor in the School of Natural Sciences. For further information, call (609) 734-8118.