He developed a widely-used method for observing the electrical activity of single rod and cone photoreceptor cells and described how they encode light stimuli.
[4] Baylor received his BA in chemistry from Knox College in 1961, where he graduated magna cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
[4][5] Denis Baylor is known for work on early steps in vision, in particular the mechanism in which light energy is converted to neural signals within the rod and cone photoreceptor cells of the eye.
He also described and defined the molecular mechanism of two components of intrinsic photoreceptor noise that limit our ability to detect very dim light.
[12][13][14] His work revealed how light[15] and color[16][17] are initially encoded in the primate retina, providing a physiological basis for psychophysical results of Stiles on human vision.
He also helped to elucidate the molecular mechanism of a number of the steps that mediate and control the photoreceptor’s electrical response to light.