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Erwin Neher

German biophysicist and Nobel laureate

Erwin Neher
Erwin Neher in June 2015
Born	(1944-03-20) 20 March 1944 (age 80) Landsberg am Lech, Bavaria, Germany
Nationality	German
Alma mater	Technical University of Munich University of Wisconsin–Madison
Known for	patch clamp
Awards	W. Alden Spencer Award (1983) Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1991) ForMemRS (1994)[1] Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize (1987) Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize (1986)
Scientific career
Fields	Biophysics[2][3][4]
Institutions	University of Göttingen University of Wisconsin–Madison Yale University Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry
Academic advisors	Charles F. Stevens
Website	www.mpg.de/323786/biophysikalische_chemie_wissM6

Erwin Neher (German pronunciation: [ˈɛʁviːn ˈneːɐ] ^ⓘ; /ˈneɪər/;^[5] 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".^[6][7][8]

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.^[9] 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. While at the Charles Stevens Laboratory at Yale University for post-doctoral work he met fellow scientist Eva-Maria Neher, whom he married in 1978 and subsequently the couple had five children – Richard, Benjamin, Carola, Sigmund, and Margret.^[10]

In 2003 Neher was one of 22 Nobel Laureates who signed the Humanist Manifesto.^[11]

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".^[12] 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,^{[13][14][15][16]} a project Neher began as a postdoctoral research associate in the laboratory of Charles F. Stevens at Yale.

Since 1983, he became a director at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical ChemistryinGöttingen and led the Department for Membrane Biophysics. He turned into an emeritus director of the Institute since 2011. He is also a Professor Emeritus at the University of Göttingen and a co-chair of the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Göttingen^[when?] .

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• Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1991, jointly with Bert Sakmann)^[17]
• Fellow of the Royal Society (1994)^[1]
• Ralph W. Gerard Prize in Neuroscience (1991)
• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize (1987)
• Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize (1986)

Neher holds honorary degrees from:^[17]

• University of Alicante, Spain, 1993
• University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, USA, 1993
• Technical University of Munich, FRG, 1994
• University of Madrid, Spain, 1994
• Huazhong University of Sciences & Technology, Wuhan, PR China, 1994
• University of BahÌa Blanca, Argentine, 1995
• University of Rome, Italy, 1996
• Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, 1999
• University of Pavia, 2000

Neher was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 1994.^[1]

• Schoenfeld, Robert L (January 2006). Exploring the Nervous System: With Electronic Tools, an Institutional Base, a Network of Scientists. Universal-Publishers. ISBN 978-1-58112-461-3.

Scholia has an author profile for Erwin Neher.

• Erwin Neher on Nobelprize.org