Kandel, who fled with his family from the Nazi occupation of Austria in 1939, was educated at Harvard University and New York University School of Medicine and began his career at the National Institute of Mental Health. He pursued studies in psychiatry, but soon shifted to neurobiology in an effort to understand the biological underpinnings of psychological phenomena. He came to Columbia in 1974 as professor of physiology and psychiatry and became the founding director of the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior in 1975. He is the coauthor, along with Columbia colleagues Thomas Jessell and James Schwartz, of Principles of Neural Science, a widely used neuroscience textbook.

Kandel has received 15 honorary degrees, is a member of the National Academy of Sciences as well as the National Science Academies of German and France. He has been recognized with the Albert Lasker Award, the Heineken Award of the Netherlands, the Gairdner Award of Canada, the Wolf Prize of Israel, the National Medal of Science USA and the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2000.