His lab has developed the first means to optically measure neurotransmission, and has introduced new hypotheses of neurodegeneration in Parkinson's disease, and changes in synapses that produce autism [2] and habit learning.

[3] Under the stage name Dave Soldier, he is known as a composer and musician in a variety of genres including avant-garde, classical, and jazz:[4] the intersection between these careers was detailed in a 2023 New Yorker profile.

[7] They further showed that the quantal events could "flicker" due to extremely rapid opening and closing of the a synaptic vesicle fusion pore (at rates as high as 4,000 times a second) with the plasma membrane.

They showed how methamphetamine neurotoxicity occurs due to dopamine-derived oxidative stress in the cytosol followed by induction of autophagy,[18] and with Nigel Bamford of the University of Washington, how these drugs activate long-term changes in the cortical synapses that project to the striatum.

Sulzer and the santur player Alan Kushan produced Yol K'u with Mayan Indian children from the Seeds of Knowledge School in the high mountains of San Mateo Ixtatan, Guatemala, a collaboration using giant marimbas.

As a leader, composer and violinist for the group, Soldier wrote and performed traditional pieces influenced by music styles including serialism, Delta blues and hip-hop.

With inspiration from Haydn and Beethoven quartets, he explored anachronisms stemming from a classical ensemble playing in contemporary popular idioms, particularly rhythm and blues and punk rock.

With a drummer incorporated into the quartet, Soldier found that string instruments could play the blues in the hands of players who understood the contrasting styles, including violinists Regina Carter and Todd Reynolds.

The Soldier String Quartet also premiered and recorded works by other composers such as Elliott Sharp, Iannis Xenakis, Alvin Curran, Nicolas Collins, Butch Morris, Zeena Parkins, Leroy Jenkins and Phill Niblock, as well as with jazz musicians including Tony Williams and Amina Claudine Myers.

Soldier realized the request by Johannes Kepler for a specific motet as related 400 years earlier in Harmonices Mundi, also known as The Music of the Spheres, a foundational book for modern physics.

Soldier's compositions with classical musicians include a socialist-realist opera, "Naked Revolution", based on paintings by the Russian conceptual artists Komar and Melamid, commissioned for the 25th anniversary of "The Kitchen".

These include a collection of early Latin homoerotic lyrics in "Smut", and settings of Frederick Douglass in "The Apotheosis of John Brown" and Mark Twain in "War Prayer".

Chamber works by Soldier have been recorded by violinists Regina Carter and Miranda Cuckson, cellist Erik Friedlander, pianists Steven Beck, Taka Kigawa and Christopher O'Riley, accordionist William Schimmel, the PubliQuartet, singer Eliza Carthy, the choir Ekemeles, and flutist Robert Dick.

He later worked as an arranger, violinist, or guitarist with John Cale, Guided by Voices, Van Dyke Parks, David Byrne, Ric Ocasek, Lee Ranaldo, Eliza Carthy, Maureen Tucker, Laurie Anderson, the Plastic People of the Universe, Jesse Harris, Pete Seeger, Richard Hell, and Bob Neuwirth.

Soldier co-founded the EEG Records (formerly Mulatta Records) label in 2000, for which he has produced a wide variety of recordings including contemporary flamenco music by Pedro Cortes, Texas singer/ songwriter Vince Bell with Bob Neuwirth, the 30 piece jazz string orchestra Spontaneous River by Jason Hwang, jazz drummer William Hooker, the traditional group Wofa from Guinea with American R&B musicians including Bernie Worrell; the jazz French horn virtuoso John Clark (musician), the New York-Iranian santur virtuoso Alan Kushan and released music by David First, two albums of Fula flute music by Sylvain Leroux with children in Conakry, Guinea, Memphis musician Alex Greene, Ursel Schlicht, and Twink.

In New York he engaged in many collaborations with producer Giorgio Gomelsky, including running "The House Band",[39] the Russian conceptual artists Komar and Melamid, and co-wrote two extended musical theater pieces with author Kurt Vonnegut.

While attending graduate school in biology at Columbia University, he privately studied composition with the co-inventor of the synthesizer and "tape music" Otto Luening and formed his Soldier String Quartet in 1985.

Soldier performed, recorded, composed, and arranged for television and film (Sesame Street, I Shot Andy Warhol), and pop and jazz acts ranging from Pete Seeger to David Byrne and Guided by Voices.