Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine · 2000
Eric Kandel
A child refugee from Nazi Vienna who used a sea snail to show how memories are stored as physical changes between nerve cells.
The Nobel citation: “for their discoveries concerning signal transduction in the nervous system”
- Born
- November 7, 1929, Vienna, Austria
- Shared with
- Arvid Carlsson, Paul Greengard
- Affiliation at the time
- Columbia University, USA
Medicine prize
2000
Shared with 2 other laureates.
Age that year
71years
Born in 1929.
Sources cited
24
Fact-checked September 24, 2026.
- He fled Nazi-ruled Vienna at nine. When Viennese callers hailed another 'Austrian Nobel Prize' in 2000, he told them it was an American Jewish one.
- His key lab animal was the sea snail Aplysia, with about 20,000 nerve cells. The largest are about a millimeter wide, big enough to see with the naked eye.
- He first planned to be a psychoanalyst. At Harvard he studied history and literature and wrote his thesis on German writers' attitudes to Nazism.
- The call from Stockholm came at 5:30 a.m. on Yom Kippur 2000, the morning after he and his wife had attended the Kol Nidre service.
- Asked by Austria's president how the country could honor him, he asked for a University of Vienna symposium on Austria's response to National Socialism.
The breakthrough
How nerve cells store short-term and long-term memories
Your brain has many billions of nerve cells, and they pass signals to each other at tiny junctions called synapses. In the 1950s nobody knew how nerve cells could hold on to a memory. Kandel chose an unusual teacher: Aplysia, a sea snail whose nervous system has only about 20,000 nerve cells, some big enough to see with the naked eye. When its skin is touched, the snail pulls in its gill, and that simple reflex can learn. Touched again and again, the snail reacts less. After an unpleasant stimulus to its tail, it reacts more strongly. Kandel and his colleagues traced the few nerve cells behind the reflex and found that learning changed how strongly specific synapses passed on their signals. For short-term memory, the chemical messenger serotonin sets off a chain reaction inside the cell, through a molecule called cyclic AMP and an enzyme called protein kinase A, which makes the synapse release more of its signal. No new proteins are needed. Long-term memory is different. Repeated training sends signals into the cell's nucleus, where a gene switch called CREB turns on genes that make new proteins, and the cell grows new synapses. Think of short-term memory as turning up the volume on an existing phone line, and long-term memory as laying new cable. In the 1990s his lab found the same switch at work in the hippocampus, a memory center, of mice.[1],[2],[3],[4],[18],[19]
“The freedom that I have experienced in America and in its academic institutions made Stockholm possible for me, as it has for many others.”
What it meant for humanity
Kandel's work changed what a memory is understood to be. Before his experiments, some scientists thought memories lived in loops of reverberating activity or in electrical fields spread across the brain. Working in the sea snail, he showed that memory is stored in specific synapses, and that lasting memories are built by switching on genes and growing new connections. The Nobel Assembly said these mechanisms apply to humans too, and that understanding them might open the way to new drugs for memory problems in dementia. Kandel also helped join two worlds that rarely spoke: psychology, which studied behavior, and the cell biology of the brain. In 1998 he urged psychiatry to ground its training and thinking in brain biology, a proposal that drew several published letters in reply. His lab later applied the same tools to age-related memory loss. Principles of Neural Science, the textbook he built with James Schwartz from a Columbia course syllabus, won a wide readership in the United States and abroad, and his books for general readers, such as In Search of Memory and The Age of Insight, carried the biology of mind to the public. The medical payoff is still mostly ahead. In 2013 Kandel himself called the clinical benefits so far modest, and in 2009 he wrote that new treatments for the thinking problems seen in depression, schizophrenia and age-related memory loss were badly needed. What he gave the world is a clear, testable account of how experience physically changes the brain.
- In three 1970 papers in Science, his team showed that simple learning in Aplysia changes the strength of specific, identified synapses, evidence that simple memories can be stored as changes in synapses.[1],[2],[18]
- His lab showed that long-term memory needs new proteins, switched on through the CREB gene regulator, while short-term memory does not. Blocking CREB in a nerve cell stopped only the long-term change.[3],[4],[19]
- Using genetically modified mice in the 1990s, his lab and others found that the same cyclic AMP, protein kinase A and CREB switch is needed for spatial memory in the hippocampus. His lab later used mice to study age-related memory loss.[2],[4],[12],[24]
- In 1998 he argued that future psychiatrists need more training in how the brain works. At the Nobel banquet he said his generation of scientists expected the biology of mind to matter as much to this century as the biology of the gene did to the last.[5],[20]
- Principles of Neural Science grew from the syllabus of his Columbia neural science course and became a widely used textbook linking cell biology, behavior and clinical disorders.[2]
- Invited by Austria's president to name an honor, he asked for a University of Vienna symposium on Austria's response to National Socialism. He later said it was the first time speakers there talked honestly about the country's record.[8]
Impact in numbers
Kandel's contribution is knowledge rather than a product, so this profile makes no numerical impact claim. No approved drug, device or test can yet be traced mainly to his discoveries, and a number for a better understanding of memory would be invented precision. What he gave is a basic account of how experience changes the brain: short-term memory adjusts existing synapses, while long-term memory switches on genes and grows new ones. Researchers studying Alzheimer's disease, age-related memory loss and post-traumatic stress build on this picture, and his strategy of studying behavior in a simple animal, one identified nerve cell at a time, showed others how to link molecules to learning. He also pushed psychiatry toward biology. His co-laureate Paul Greengard described the protein-phosphorylation signaling that Kandel found at work in short-term memory, so their contributions are closely linked. His textbook and books for general readers have taught the biology of mind to students and the public.
Fundamental scienceHealthEducation
No number is given here on purpose. Some contributions cannot be counted honestly, and we would rather describe them than invent a figure.
The double edge
No serious harms are documented from Kandel's research. The main criticism concerns expectations. Hopes that his memory pathway would soon yield memory-boosting drugs have not been met. A company that called his findings its scientific cornerstone had an accumulated deficit of $216.6 million and no approved drug by the end of 2007, and in 2008 agreed to be sold for 61 cents a share. In 2013 he called the clinical benefits so far modest. A former lab member has also said that the early hope of finding one master mechanism of learning now looks naive.
- Minor
Memory drugs have not yet arrived
Memory Pharmaceuticals, which named Kandel a scientific founder and his research its cornerstone, had no approved drug and a $216.6 million accumulated deficit by end-2007, after an Alzheimer's trial missed its main goal. In late 2008 Roche agreed to buy it for $0.61 a share. A 2013 CNN interviewer noted he had said in 2004 that effective memory drugs could come within two years. In that interview he called the clinical benefits so far modest.[16],[21],[22],[23]
- Minor
No single mechanism of learning
Robert Hawkins, who worked in Kandel's lab, has said the field's early hope of finding the molecular mechanism of learning was naive, since learning turned out to rely on more than one mechanism. Kandel also stresses that human memory is far more complex than a snail's.[16],[17]
Against the odds
Kandel later wrote that hostility to Jews was long rooted in Vienna before 1938, holding Jews back in government jobs and much of social life. In 1938 about 192,000 Jews lived in Austria, most of them in Vienna. When German troops entered in March 1938, much of the population cheered. Right after Hitler arrived in Vienna, nearly all of Kandel's non-Jewish classmates shunned him. He was jeered at and pushed around in the park, and within weeks he and the only other Jewish pupil were sent to a school for Jewish children. His father was forced to scrub propaganda slogans off the street. On Kristallnacht in November 1938, the family was ordered out of their apartment. When they came back about a week later, their valuables, including the nine-year-old's new birthday toys, had been stolen. His father was arrested along with hundreds of other Jewish men and let go only because he had been a soldier for Austria-Hungary in World War I. He lost his toy store and was left destitute. An uncle in New York sent affidavits, but the family waited about a year for a Polish quota number. Eric and his brother left in April 1939, and his parents followed that September. Of the Austrian Jews who could not escape, some 47,555 were deported east, and the vast majority were murdered. In Brooklyn his father started over in a toothbrush factory.
—
Discrimination
Kandel writes that hostility to Jews was a long-standing part of Viennese life even before the 1938 annexation, with Jews held back in government service and shut out of much of social life.[2]
1938
Persecution
Right after Hitler arrived in Vienna, all but one of his non-Jewish classmates shunned him. He was jeered at and pushed around in the park, and within weeks he and the only other Jewish pupil in his class were sent to a separate school for Jewish children. His father was among the Jews forced to scrub propaganda slogans off the streets.[2],[9]
1938
Antisemitic attack
On Kristallnacht in November 1938, two men ordered the family out of their apartment. When they returned about a week later, their valuables had been taken, including the toys he had just received for his ninth birthday.[2],[11],[15]
1938
Imprisonment
During Kristallnacht his father was arrested by the police along with hundreds of other Jewish men. He was let go after a few days, spared only because he had been a soldier for Austria-Hungary in World War I.[2],[11]
1938
Poverty
His father's toy store was taken from him, leaving him destitute. A Jewish community social service agency supported the family until they left Austria.[11]
1939
Exile
An uncle in New York sent affidavits, but the family waited about a year for a Polish quota number, and US rules meant they had to leave in stages. Eric and his brother Lewis left in April 1939; his parents followed in September 1939.[2],[10]
—
Other
When he chose to study learning in a sea snail instead of mammals, senior scientists, notably John Eccles, discouraged him. Some colleagues saw the move as career suicide.[2],[17]
Jewish background
Kandel was born in Vienna into a Jewish family. His parents, Herman Kandel and Charlotte Zimels, came from Galicia, and the family celebrated Passover at his grandparents' home. In Brooklyn his grandfather tutored him in Hebrew, and he attended the Yeshiva of Flatbush until 1944, reading the Five Books of Moses and other biblical books in Hebrew. He married Denise Bystryn, a Jewish woman from France who was hidden in a Catholic convent as a girl during the war. He has said he does not fast on Yom Kippur, but he went to the Kol Nidre service the night before the Nobel call, and he called his prize an American Jewish Nobel. His first honorary degree came from the Jewish Theological Seminary.[2],[7],[13]
Key dates
November 7, 1929
Born in Vienna to Herman and Charlotte Kandel, Jewish parents from Galicia who ran a small toy store.[1],[2]
March 1938
Germany annexes Austria. His classmates stop speaking to him, and he is moved to a school for Jewish children.[2],[9],[14]
November 1938
On Kristallnacht the family is forced from their apartment, which is looted. His father is arrested and loses his shop.[2],[11]
April 1939
Leaves Vienna with his brother Lewis for New York. His parents follow in September 1939.[2],[10]
1944
Graduates from the Yeshiva of Flatbush in Brooklyn, then attends Erasmus Hall High School, from which he later wins a scholarship to Harvard.[2]
1956
Earns his MD from New York University and marries Denise Bystryn.[2],[6]
1957
Joins the National Institutes of Health, where he and Alden Spencer record from inside single nerve cells of the hippocampus.[2],[3],[16]
1962
Moves to Paris to work with Ladislav Tauc on the sea snail Aplysia.[2]
1970
With colleagues at NYU, publishes papers showing that learning in Aplysia changes the strength of specific synapses.[1],[18]
1974
Becomes founding director of Columbia University's Center for Neurobiology and Behavior.[2],[6]
1983
Shares the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award with Vernon Mountcastle.[6]
1990
His lab shows that disabling CREB-like gene switches in Aplysia nerve cells blocks long-term, but not short-term, strengthening of synapses.[19]
October 9, 2000
Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Arvid Carlsson and Paul Greengard. The call comes on Yom Kippur.[4],[7]
October 7, 2008
A Vienna city council committee votes unanimously to make him an honorary citizen of the city his family was driven from.[13]
Sources
- 1.Eric R. Kandel - Facts · NobelPrize.org (Nobel Prize Outreach)
- 2.Eric R. Kandel - Biographical · NobelPrize.org (from Les Prix Nobel. The Nobel Prizes 2000, Nobel Foundation, 2001), 2001
- 3.The Molecular Biology of Memory Storage: A Dialog between Genes and Synapses (Nobel Lecture, 8 December 2000) · NobelPrize.org, 2000
- 4.The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2000 - Press release · NobelPrize.org (Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet), 2000
- 5.Eric R. Kandel - Banquet speech, 10 December 2000 · NobelPrize.org, 2000
- 6.Eric R. Kandel - Curriculum Vitae · NobelPrize.org
- 7.Eric Kandel: How I learned I'd won the Nobel Prize (video interview, recorded June 2015) · Web of Stories, 2015
- 8.Eric Kandel: Dinner with the President of Austria (video interview, recorded June 2015) · Web of Stories, 2015
- 9.Eric Kandel: Annexation to Germany ignites Austrian anti-Semitism (video interview, recorded June 2015) · Web of Stories, 2015
- 10.Eric Kandel: Saved by my mother's prescience (video interview, recorded June 2015) · Web of Stories, 2015
- 11.Eric Kandel: Kristallnacht - the turning point in my family's history (video interview, recorded June 2015) · Web of Stories, 2015
- 12.Eric Kandel: CPEB and exploring age-related memory loss (video interview, recorded June 2015) · Web of Stories, 2015
- 13.Late homage: Nobel Prize winner Eric Kandel becomes honorary citizen of Vienna (reprinting an Austrian Federal Chancellery release of 20 October 2008) · Jewish News from Austria (Internet Archive copy), 2008
- 14.Austria (Holocaust Encyclopedia) · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- 15.Vienna (Holocaust Encyclopedia) · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- 16.A Nobel Prize with help from sea slugs (interview with Eric Kandel) · CNN, 2013
- 17.Eric Kandel: Learning about the Human Brain from Sea Slugs · Lasker Foundation
- 18.Neuronal mechanisms of habituation and dishabituation of the gill-withdrawal reflex in Aplysia (Castellucci V, Pinsker H, Kupfermann I, Kandel ER; Science 167:1745-1748) · Science (PubMed record), 1970
- 19.Injection of the cAMP-responsive element into the nucleus of Aplysia sensory neurons blocks long-term facilitation (Dash PK, Hochner B, Kandel ER; Nature 345:718-721) · Nature (PubMed record), 1990
- 20.A new intellectual framework for psychiatry (Kandel ER; Am J Psychiatry 155:457-469) · American Journal of Psychiatry (PubMed record), 1998
- 21.The biology of memory: a forty-year perspective (Kandel ER; J Neurosci 29:12748-12756) · Journal of Neuroscience (via PubMed Central), 2009
- 22.Memory Pharmaceuticals Corp. Annual Report on Form 10-K for fiscal year 2007 · U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR), 2008
- 23.Offer to Purchase for Cash All Outstanding Shares of Common Stock of Memory Pharmaceuticals Corp. at $0.61 Net Per Share (Hoffmann-La Roche) · U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR), 2008
- 24.Molecular mechanism for age-related memory loss: the histone-binding protein RbAp48 (Pavlopoulos E, ... Small SA, Kandel ER; Sci Transl Med 5:200ra115) · Science Translational Medicine (PubMed record), 2013
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