Director at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen, Germany

Heinrich Wieland Prize 2014 for paradigmatic studies on membrane fusion, synaptic vesicles and neurotransmitter release

Research

Reinhard Jahn has pioneered research into membrane fusion and neurotransmitter release. In the brain, nerve cells send chemical signals to each other by releasing neurotransmitters from their storage place within the cell, the synaptic vesicles. For release, the membranes of the vesicle and its cell need to fuse. Jahn was among the first to discover that so-called SNARE proteins drive membrane fusion by showing that tetanus and botulinum toxins inhibit the process by cleaving these proteins. He was also the first to describe synaptic vesicles by analyzing their building blocks. Membranes fuse in all body cells that grow, transport substances, or signal, making Jahn’s paradigmatic results relevant for a wide range of fields.

Academic Career

Jahn studied biology and chemistry at the University of Göttingen, Germany. He subsequently worked for four years at Yale University and Rockefeller University in the USA. He returned to Germany in 1986 and served as a junior group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry in Martinsried until 1991. After holding a professorship at the Yale University School of Medicine with a joint appointment at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute for six years, he once again made his way back to Germany to assume his current position.

Selected Honours & Memberships

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize (2000), Ernst Jung Prize for Medicine (2006), Heinrich Wieland Prize (2014)
German Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina), EMBO member

Additional Activities

• Founder and dean of the International Max Planck Research School Molecular Biology and of the Göttingen Graduate School for Neurosciences, Biophysics, and Molecular Biosciences.
• Vocal advocate for improving conditions for graduate students and mentor for female scientists