Erwin Neher (born 20 March 1944) is a German biophysicist, specializing in the field of cell physiology. For significant contribution in the field, in 1991 he was awarded, along with Bert Sakmann, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for "their discoveries concerning the function of single ion channels in cells".[1][2][3]
Early life and education
Neher was born in Landsberg am Lech, Upper Bavaria, the son of Elisabeth (née Pfeiffer), a teacher, and Franz Xaver Neher, an executive at a dairy company.[4] He studied physics at the Technical University of Munich from 1963 to 1966.
In 1966, he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study in the US. He spent a year at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and earned a master's degree in biophysics.
In 2003 Neher was one of 22 Nobel Laureates who signed the Humanist Manifesto.[5]
Career
In 1986, he was awarded the
Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from
Columbia University together with
Bert Sakmann. In 1987, he received the
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, which is the highest honour awarded in German research. Along with
Bert Sakmann, he was awarded the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1991 for "their discoveries concerning the function of single
ion channels in cells".
[6] Neher and Sakmann were the first to record the currents of single ion channels on a live cell (they were first recorded using the lipid bilayer method) through their development of the
patch-clamp technique,
[7][8][9][1] a project Neher began as a
postdoctoral research associate in the laboratory of
Charles F. Stevens at Yale.
He is now a director at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen and heads its Department for Membrane Biophysics. He is also a Professor at the University of Göttingen and a co-chair of the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Göttingen.
Honors and awards
Neher was awarded an Honorary degree from the University of Pavia in 2000. He was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 1994.[10]
References
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