Bengt Oberger · CC BY-SA 4.0

Kandel spent decades working out how memories are physically stored in neurons, tracing the biochemical changes that let brief experience become lasting recall. That research earned him the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, shared with Arvid Carlsson and Paul Greengard. He founded Columbia's Center for Neurobiology and Behavior in 1975 and later wrote In Search of Memory, a memoir of his life and research that won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Science and Technology.