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Bert Sakmann | |
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| Born | (1942-06-12)12 June 1942 (age 83) |
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| Website | www |
Bert Sakmann (German pronunciation:[ˈbɛʁtˈzakˌman]ⓘ; born 12 June 1942) is a German cellphysiologist. He shared theNobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine withErwin Neher in 1991 for their work on "the function of single ion channels in cells," and the invention of thepatch clamp.[3][4] Bert Sakmann was Professor atHeidelberg University and is an Emeritus Scientific Member of theMax Planck Institute for Medical Research inHeidelberg,Germany. Since 2008 he leads an emeritus research group at theMax Planck Institute of Neurobiology.[3][5][6]
Sakmann was born inStuttgart, the son of Annemarie (née Schaefer), a physical therapist, and Bertold Sakmann, a theater director.[7] Sakmann enrolled in Volksschule inLindau, and completed the Wagenburggymnasium inStuttgart in 1961. He studied medicine from 1967 onwards inTübingen,Freiburg,Berlin,Paris andMunich. After completing his medical exams at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, he became a medical assistant in 1968 atMunich University, while also working as a scientific assistant (Wissenschaftlicher Assistent) at Munich'sMax-Planck-Institut für Psychiatrie, in theNeurophysiology Department underOtto Detlev Creutzfeldt. In 1971 he moved toUniversity College London, where he worked in the Department ofBiophysics underBernard Katz. In 1974, he completed his medical dissertation, under the titleElektrophysiologie der neuralen Helladaptation in der Katzenretina (Electrophysiology of Neural Light Adaption in the Cat Retina) in the Medical Faculty of Göttingen University.[3]
Afterwards (still in 1974), Sakmann returned to the lab of Otto Creutzfeldt, who had meanwhile moved to theMax Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen. Sakmann joined the membrane biology group in 1979.
In 1990 he accepted a position at the Faculty of Natural Science Medicine atHeidelberg University. One year later, he became a full university professor at the Faculty of Biology in Heidelberg.
On 2 June 2009,Peter Gruss, the president of the Max Planck Society, announced that Sakmann would serve as the scientific director of the Max Planck Florida Institute, the organization's biomedical research facility atFlorida Atlantic University inJupiter, Florida.
Sakmann is the founder of the Bert-Sakmann-Stiftung.
In 1986, Sakmann andErwin Neher were awarded theLouisa Gross Horwitz Prize fromColumbia University. In 1987, he received theGottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of theDeutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, which is the highest honour awarded in German research. In 1991, he received theRalph W. Gerard Prize in Neuroscience, theHarvey Prize and theNobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine along with Neher, with whom he had worked in Göttingen.[3] In 1993 he became a member of theGerman Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.[8] He was elected aForeign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 1994.[2]
