Dr. Finger, having grown up fishing by the Atlantic Ocean, received a B.S., a M.S. and Ph.D. from the Mass. Inst. Of Technology completing his studies in 1975 to embark on a series of investigations on the sensory systems of fish and their representation in the brain. . In particular, Dr. Finger was interested in the chemosensory modalities, which in fish include smell, taste and a common chemical sense mediated by isolated chemosensory cells distributed across the body surface and in the oral and nasal passageways. These studies allowed Dr. Finger and colleagues to compare the extensive chemosensory capabilities in fishes to the lesser systems in mammals. In mid-1990s Dr. Finger began a transition to studying chemosensory systems in rodents helping define the characteristics of different classes of taste cells and ultimately, in a 2005 publication in Science showing that ATP serves as the key neurotransmitter connecting taste buds to the sensory nerves innervating them. These studies on chemosensory transduction in taste buds led to the discovery of chemosensory cells in the nasal cavity that share transduction cascades and receptors with taste buds. Dr. Tizzano joined with Dr. Finger in 2010 to show that these so-called solitary chemosensory cells detect irritants and bacterial toxins to evoke an immunogenic inflammatory response. In recent years, Dr. Finger has adopted the technique of scanning blockface electron microscopy to generate an in-depth appreciation of structural and functional relationships between cells in taste buds and the nerves innervating them.