Professor Erwin Neher and the fascinating field of biophysical chemistry

 

Erwin Neher, (born March 20, 1944, Landsberg, Germany), is a German biophysicist who was a co-recipient, with Bert Sakmann, of the 1991 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for "their discoveries concerning the function of single-ion channels in cells." This was possible due to their invention of the "patch-clamp" technique, a laboratory method that can detect the very small electrical currents produced by the passage of ions through the cell membrane.

Dr. Neher earned an undergraduate degree in physics from the Technical University of Munich and then attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison (through a Fulbright Scholarship), where he obtained a master of science degree in 1967. From 1968 to 1972, Neher did his graduate and postdoctoral work at the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry, Munich. He first developed the idea of the patch-clamp technique in his doctoral thesis and earned a Ph.D. from the Technical University of Munich in 1970. In 1972 Neher attended the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen, and began his collaboration with Sakmann two years later.  In 1976, Neher returned to the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, where he held the position of Director of the Membrane Biophysics department from 1983-2011. 

Patch clamp biophysics - The membrane of a cell contains numerous pore-like channels that control the passage of ions, or charged atoms, into and out of the cell. Neher and Sakmann used an extremely thin glass pipette, one-thousandth of a millimetre in diameter, that was fitted with an electrode to detect the flow of individual ions through the ion channels of a cell membrane. The technique was used to study a broad range of cell functions. During a "patch clamp" recording, a hollow glass tube called a micropipette or patch pipette which contains an electrolyte solution and is connected to a recording electrode is brought in contact with an isolated cell of interest's membrane, thus forming an electrical circuit.  This technique made it possible, for the first time, to record the currents of single ion channel molecules which improved our understanding of the roles that these channels play in fundamental cell processes such as action potential and nerve activity of CNS-associated cells.  

The figure shows a general patch clamp set up. Currents flowing through the channels move into the patch pipette and can be recorded by an electrode that is connected to a differential amplifier (a type of electronic amplifier that amplifies the difference between two input voltages but suppresses any common voltage). This recording of current allows us to make conclusions about the membrane conductance. 

Apart from the 1991 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Dr. Neher has several accolades, most of which he has shared with Dr. Sakmann - 

Nernst-Haber-Bodenstein, Award of the German Society for Physical Chemistry 1977

Feldberg Award, Feldberg Foundation, London 1979

K.C. Cole Award, Biophysical Society 1982

Harold Lamport Award, New York Academy of Sciences 1982

Spencer Award, Columbia University 1983

Adolf Fick-Preis, Universität Würzburg 1984

Louisa Gross-Horwitz Award, Columbia University 1986

Fidia Research Award Lecture, Fidia Research Foundation 1986

Schunck-Preis, Universität Giessen 1986

Leibniz Award, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft 1986

Gairdner Award,Toronto l989

Hans Hellmut Vits-Preis, Universität Münster 1990

Bristol-Myers Squibb Research Award, New York 1990

Gerard Prize, American Neuroscience Association 1991

Sources:

Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. (n.d.). Erwin Neher. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved November 27, 2022, from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Erwin-Neher

The nobel prize in physiology or medicine 1991. NobelPrize.org. (n.d.). Retrieved November 27, 2022, from https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1991/neher/biographical/

Sakmann, B., & Neher, E. (1984). Patch clamp techniques for studying ionic channels in excitable membranes. Annual Review of Physiology, 46(1), 455–472. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ph.46.030184.002323

Veitinger, S. (2022, November 18). The patch-clamp technique. Science Lab | Leica Microsystems. Retrieved November 27, 2022, from https://www.leica-microsystems.com/science-lab/the-patch-clamp-technique/?tx_leicacontacts_pi1%5Bcontroller%5D=Contacts&tx_leicacontacts_pi1%5Bcountry%5D=MZ&cHash=51407dd3ff5ecdc974e87088c66bf1b9