Toshio Narahashi (January 30, 1927 – April 21, 2013) was an internationally known pharmacologist.
Prior, he was vice chairman of the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at Duke University, where he served on the faculty from 1962 to 1977.
He is considered by many to be the "founding father of neurotoxicology" and is credited with discovering how tetrodotoxin, the poison in puffer fish, immobilizes parts of the nervous system.
According to the Chicago Tribune, "He began his career studying insecticides in an entomology lab.
His findings in the lab helped form the basis of 26 published papers and a doctorate in neurotoxicology that he would earn in 1960 from the University of Tokyo.