Eric Nestler, MD, PhD

Dr. Nestler oversees research and educational efforts throughout the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Mount Sinai Health System. In his own research, Dr. Nestler strives to better understand the molecular mechanisms of drug addiction and depression. He uses animal models of these disorders to identify how we become addicted to drugs, or how anxiety medication can lead to depression-like syndromes. His goal is to develop improved treatments for these disorders. Dr. Nestler has authored more than 700 journal articles, 30 book chapters, and five books.

Before joining Mount Sinai, Dr. Nestler was on faculty at Yale as the Elizabeth Mears and House Jameson Professor of Psychiatry, Pharmacology, and Neurobiology and Director of the Division of Molecular Psychiatry and the Abraham Ribicoff Research Facilities. He then joined the faculty at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas as the Lou and Ellen McGinley Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychiatry. At Mount Sinai, he was the founding Director of the Brain Institute, created in 2008 and renamed The Friedman Brain Institute in 2010.

Dr. Nestler has served on the Board of Scientific Counselors and National Advisory Drug Abuse Council of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Advisory Mental Health Council for the National Institute of Mental Health, as a Council member and President (2011) of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, and as a Council member and President (2017) of the Society for Neuroscience. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 1998 and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005.

Dr. Nestler earned his Ph.D. in pharmacology and Doctorate of Medicine from Yale University. He completed his residency and postdoctoral training in psychiatry at McLean Hospital and Yale University.

Dr. Nestler serves as Chair of the NYSCF Scientific Advisory Board.