Born on March 20, 1944 in Landsberg/Lech. Study of physics at TU Munich and University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA, Master of Science Madison (1967), doctorate in physics at TU Munich (1970), research associate Yale University, USA (1975-1976), German Habilitation in physics at Göttingen University (1981), research associate at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry (since 1972), Fairchild Scholar California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, USA (1989), Director and Scientific Member at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry (since 1983).

Erwin Neher, FRS, is professor emeritus at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany. Neher is a biophysicist who pioneered the patch clamp, the first device to measure the flow of electrical current through single-ion channels. Neher was appointed director of the Department of Membrane Biophysics in 1983 (through 2011) and three years later also became honorary professor at the Georgia Augusta.

Scientifc Awards, Honors and Memberships

Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology together with B. Sakmann (1991)
Member of the Order “Pour le Mérite” (1995)
Leibniz Prize of the DFG
Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences USA (since 1989)
Fellow of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences (since 1991)
Foreign Member of the Royal Society, London (since 1994)