Mechanisms of Memory

David Sweatt received a PhD in Pharmacology from Vanderbilt University for studies of intracellular signaling mechanisms. He then did a post-doctoral Fellowship at the Columbia University Center for Neurobiology and Behavior, working on memory mechanisms in the laboratory of Nobel laureate Eric Kandel. From 1989 to 2006 he was a member of the Neuroscience faculty at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, rising through the ranks there to Professor and Director of the Neuroscience PhD program. In 2006 he moved to the University of Alabama at Birmingham where he served for ten years as the Evelyn F. McKnight endowed Chairman of the Department of Neurobiology at UAB Medical School, and the Director of the Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Institute at UAB. Dr. Sweatt's laboratory studies biochemical mechanisms of learning and memory, most recently focusing on the role of epigenetic mechanisms in memory formation. In addition, his research program also investigates mechanisms of learning and memory disorders, such as intellectual disabilities, Alzheimer's Disease, and aging-related memory dysfunction. He is currently the Allan D. Bass endowed Chairman of the Department of Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University Medical School, and has expanded his research program to include developing PharmacoEpigenetic approaches to enable new treatments for cognitive dysfunction. Dr. Sweatt has won numerous awards and honors, including an Ellison Medical Foundation Senior Scholar Award and election as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2013 he won the Ipsen Foundation International Prize in Neural Plasticity, one of the most prestigious awards in his scientific field. In 2014 he was the recipient of the PROSE Award for the most outstanding reference volume published in 2013, for his book Epigenetic Mechanisms in the Nervous System. The book was also one of five finalists for the 2014 Dawkins Award for the most outstanding academic book published in 2013. In 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 Thomson-Reuters named him as a "Highly Cited Researcher and as one of the "World's Most Influential Scientific Minds.