Three scientists who have done key research in cell communication are the winners of this year's Bristol-Myers Squibb Award for Distinguished Achievement in Neuroscience. At a recent luncheon at the Pierre Hotel in New York, Bertil Hille, Erwin Neher, and Jean-Pierre Changeux each received a share of the $50,000 prize. Each was also given a silver medallion.
Neher is best known for his development, with Bert Sakmann, of the patch clamp, which makes it possible to measure the current passing through a single ion channel in the cell membrane. He is director of the Membrane Biophysics Department at the Max-Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Goettingen, West Germany. He received his undergraduate degree in physics from the Institute of Technology in Munich in 1965, and his M.Sc. in physics in 1967 from the University of Wisconsin, where he was a Fulbright Scholar. He then returned to the Institute of Technology ...
