Dr. Nestler received his B.A. in 1976, PhD in 1982, and MD in 1983, all from Yale University. After completing residency training in psychiatry at McLean Hospital and Yale in 1987, he joined the Yale faculty where he became the Elizabeth Mears and House Jameson Professor of Psychiatry and Neurobiology. From 1992 to 2000, Dr. Nestler served as Director of the Abraham Ribicoff Research Facilities and of the Division of Molecular Psychiatry. In 2000, Dr. Nestler moved to The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, where he is the Lou and Ellen McGinley Distinguished Professor and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Nestler is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Pfizer Scholars Award (1987), Sloan Research Fellowship (1987), McKnight Scholar Award (1989), Efron Award of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (1994), and Pasarow Foundation Award for Neuropsychiatric Research (1998). He served on the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and currently serves on the Scientific Advisory Boards of the National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia and Depression and of the National Alliance for Autism Research. He also is a current member of the National Advisory Mental Health Council, as well as a Council member for the Society for Neuroscience and the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. Dr. Nestler was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 1998. The goal of Dr. Nestler's research is to better understand the ways in which the brain responds to repeated perturbations under normal and pathological conditions. The major focus of the research is drug addiction and depression: to identify molecular changes that drugs of abuse or stress produce in the brain to cause these disorders, and to characterize the genetic and environmental factors that determine individual differences in the ability of the drugs or stress to produce these changes. This work is based on the view that a greater knowledge of the neurobiological basis of addiction and depression will lead to more effective treatments and preventive measures. Dr. Nestler lives with his wife and three children in University Park, Dallas, Texas.