[1] He studied biochemistry at Stanford University, where he received his Doctorate with a dissertation on purification and characterization of a novel mammalian recombinase under professor I. Robert Lehman.
After completing his dissertation, Zemelman began working in the laboratory of James Rothman on SNARE proteins and their influence on the intracellular membrane fusion.
[4] Subsequently, Zemelman worked jointly with Gero Miesenböck to perform seminal experiments in 2002 and 2003 on selective stimulation of neurons using light, a field that came to be known as optogenetics.
[5][6] These techniques were later improved by Karl Deisseroth in 2005; these pioneering studies in optogenetics led to these three scientists being regarded as candidates for the Nobel Prize in 2013.
[7] In 2015 Zemelman and his colleagues received three grants totaling $4 million, to develop techniques for imaging and manipulating the activity of neurons in the brain.