John Wilson Moore (born 1920) is an internationally known biophysicist who pioneered the emergent power of computers, beginning in the 1950s, to reveal how signals are generated, integrated, and then travel in neurons. He is well known for his discovery (with
Toshio Narahashi), that the puffer fish toxin
tetrodotoxin causes death by blocking the sodium ion channels that are responsible for nerve activity. Moore is currently emeritus professor of Neurobiology at Duke University Medical School where he has been a member of the faculty since 1961. Moore's
NEURON simulator software, begun with and now carried forward by Michael Hines, is used worldwide. Moore received the Cole Award of the Biophysical Society in 1981.