John Wilson Moore (November 1, 1920 – March 30, 2019) was an American biophysicist who pioneered the emergent power of computers, beginning in the 1950s, to reveal how signals are generated, integrated, and then travel in neurons.
Moore became one of the earliest adopters of the voltage clamp technique, which Cole had invented and had shown to Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley who had used it to solve the problem of the action potential.
Moving to Duke in 1961, Moore improved the voltage clamp, attracting collaborators from different universities and countries who brought him neurotoxins such as tetrodotoxin and red tide toxin to test on nerve axons.
In the 1980s Moore turned his attention to using the evolving power of computers for two big problems: simulating experimental results, and predicting how action potentials travel in neurons of complex geometry.
[5][6] Neurons in Action has been used widely to convey basic principles of neurophysiology, for example by Tibetan monks and nuns of the Dalai Lama in exile in Dharamsala, India, and in a course of the International Brain Research Organization held annually for faculty in different African countries.