Roger Nicoll, MD

“It is really the cumulative memories of a lifetime that make us who we really are… We only have to look at patients with severe Alzheimer’s disease to realize that in absence of these memories, the identity of who we are as a person is basically lost.”

Roger Nicoll is a Professor of Cellular Molecular Pharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). A pioneer in neuroscience, he brought new understanding to the molecular and cellular mechanisms of synaptic transmission, synaptic plasticity, and long-term potentiation.

Nicoll aims to understand how electrical activity reshapes the brain’s connections and enables learning plasticity and memory formation. He has authored more than 300 papers on his discoveries in the fields of synaptic physiology and biophysics.

He has received numerous awards, including the Neuroscience Award from the National Academy of Science and the Ralph W. Gerard Prize in Neuroscience from the Society for Neuroscience. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Nicoll studied biology and chemistry at Lawrence University before obtaining his M.D. from the University of Rochester. He began his neuroscience career at St. Elizabeths Hospital, where he studied neurotransmitters and their neuromodulatory effects.