Dr. Andrew Marks Honors Dr. Eric Kandel
Eric Kandel, the Nobel Prize-winning scientist, University Professor, Sagol Professor of Brain Science, Codirector of Columbia’s Zuckerman Institute, Founding Director of Columbia’s Kavli Institute for Brain Science, and Senior Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Dear fellow members of the Columbia community:
It is both a privilege and delight to say a few words on behalf of the Physiology Department honoring Eric Kandel. My father Paul Marks helped recruit Eric to Columbia in 1974 and over many years my brother Matthew has sold him some very nice art! So honoring him as we do today is particularly meaningful for me. Eric was originally in the Physiology and Psychiatry Departments, prior to establishment of the Neuroscience Dept. – Indeed, when all is said and done Eric Kandel is a physiologist! Well actually a neurophysiologist.
Eric Kandel’s life was shaped by early events in Vienna that he writes about in his autobiography entitled “In search of memory: the emergence of a new science of mind” - Indeed, there is a satisfying and upbeat symmetry to Eric’s tale, which opens with Nazis knocking on the door of his family home in Vienna but ends with an equally startling yet profoundly more hopeful phone call, coincidentally on Yom Kippur, announcing that he has been awarded a Nobel Prize. He writes: “It is difficult to trace the complex interests and actions of one’s adult life to specific experiences in childhood and youth,” but there is no question that the Eric Kandel we have come to know and love is a product of those early years living in Nazi occupied Vienna – as he writes: “almost every synagogue in Germany and Austria was set on fire. Of all the cities under Nazi control, the destructiveness in Vienna on Kristallnacht was particularly wanton. Jews were taunted and brutally beaten, expelled from their businesses, and temporarily evicted from their homes so that both could be looted by their neighbors. I remember Kristallnacht (November 8, 1938) even today… almost as if it were yesterday. It fell two days after my ninth birthday…” Eric’s insights concerning the history of Vienna and its attitude toward Jews come from the perspective of a Jewish intellectual who remains attracted to the cultural ideals of pre-Nazi Vienna and are an insightful and extremely important contribution to the dialogue on this topic.
Eric Kandel’s connections with the Physiology Department began in 1955 when he did an elective at Columbia University with Harry Grundfest whom Eric described at the time as “the most intellectually interesting neurobiologist in the New York area.” Grundfest had obtained his Ph.D. in zoology and physiology at Columbia in 1930.
Having Eric as a colleague has enriched all of our lives here at Columbia. His life as a scientist is an exemplar for all of us - beginning with the intellectual basis for his choice of a model organism, the sea snail Aplysia, which he used to elucidate fundamental principles of how memories are formed and stored in the brain. He has championed the reduction of the elusive concept of memory to a biology based on specific genes, proteins, and chemicals. These are tangible signals that can be measured and are conserved evolutionarily, enabling Eric and his colleagues to understand how the brains of advanced organisms work by studying those of more primitive ones. His tenacity and passion for science provide a model for the pursuit of a career in research that all scientists should study.
I would be remise if I did not mention Eric’s life partner Denise Kandel, Professor of Sociomedical Sciences and Psychiatry at Columbia University who Headed the Department of Epidemiology of Substance Abuse at the NY State Psychiatric Institute and who’s own work includes the most important and influential studies on factors that lead to adolescent drug abuse.
We are deeply grateful that Eric has always shared his joy with a life in science, and his sometimes painful exploration of his own roots in Judaism and his childhood in Vienna. Eric’s love of family, and the burning curiosity that continues to drive him are treasures that all of us have learned from – having Eric Kandel as a colleague here at Columbia for so many years is, simply put, what makes this place great and he has shaped all of our lives in pleotropic ways – from how we do science to our shared love of art.
– ANDREW R. MARKS, M.D.