Candace Beebe Pert (June 26, 1946 – September 12, 2013) was an American neuroscientist and pharmacologist who discovered the opioid receptor, the cellular binding site for endorphins in the brain.

In 1974, Candace Pert earned a Ph.D. in pharmacology from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where she worked in the laboratory of Solomon Snyder and discovered the brain's opiate receptor.

She held a number of patents for modified peptides in the treatment of psoriasis, Alzheimer's disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, stroke and head trauma.

[7] A long-delayed analysis of antiviral effects from the NIH study showed peripheral viral load (combined plasma and serum) was significantly reduced in the DAPTA-treated group.

[8] An eleven-person study of Peptide T effects on cellular viral load showed reductions in infected monocyte reservoir to undetectable levels in most of the patients.

Pert's discovery led to a revolution in neuroscience, helping open the door to the "information-based" model of the brain which is now replacing the old "structuralist" model... Molecules of Emotion begins as an eye-opener into the intellectual warfare of modern scientific discovery – the gamesmanship, the sly purloining of others' results – but also into the round-the-clock work, the exhilaration of a shared breakthrough, and the slow, painful rise of women in the scientific professions.