Born on March 20, 1944, in Landsberg am Lech, Bavaria, he was educated in physics at the Munich Institute of Technology and in biophysics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He returned to Germany in 1967, working at the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry in Munich. He earned his Ph.D. in biophysics from the Institute of Technology in 1970 and two years later joined the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen. He became the head of the institute's department of membrane biophysics in 1983, and in 1987 he also became a professor at the University of Göttingen.
Neher's research on nerve excitation (see Nervous System; Neurophysiology) led him to the identification and isolation of ion channels in cell membranes. These channels, consisting of single protein molecules or complexes of molecules, can open and close, allowing ions (charged atoms) to pass through. The ion passage creates electrical currents across the membrane that are of specific voltages for each ion type. Neher and his colleague, the German neurophysiologist Bert Sakmann, developed the patch-clamp technique for measuring these voltage differences. Using a micropipette as a recording electrode, the technique determines how the molecule alters its shape and size to allow and control the flow of current; thus Neher and Sakmann were able to investigate how the flow of ions affects the ion channels and subsequent secretions and contractions of the cells. The first single ion channel records were published in 1976.
Their work marked a breakthrough in research on the nervous system and in the understanding of the cellular mechanisms underlying various diseases, including diabetes and cystic fibrosis. It also allowed scientists to develop drugs that worked on specific ion channels. Neher's research after 1983 shifted to processes that ion channels initiate inside cells, such as hormone-producing cells and neurotransmitters.
In 1991 Neher and Sakmann shared the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for their discoveries concerning "the function of single ion channels in cells."
See also Cell.