Peter Hegemann

Peter Hegemann (born 11 December 1954 in Münster, West Germany) is Professor and Head of the Department for Biophysics at the Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany. He studied chemistry in Münster and Munich and earned his PhD 1984 in Munich with an investigation into the structure and function of halorhodopsin, a light-driven chloride pump in Halobacterium halobium. As a postdoc, he worked in the research groups of Dieter Oesterhelt (1984 to 1985) and with Kenneth W. Foster at Syracuse University (1985 to 1986). In 1986, he started a research group in the Department of Membrane Biochemistry at the Max-Planck-Institute of Biochemistry in Frankfurt, Germany. He became professor at the University of Regensburg and was appointed full professor at the Humboldt-University of Berlin in 2004. In 2015, he was awarded a Senior Research Professor position in Neuroscience by the Hertie Foundation.

Peter Hegemann at an award ceremony in 2015

Research

Hegemann, together with Georg Nagel, is credited with the discovery of channelrhodopsins, a family of directly light-gated ion channels. This discovery has opened the new field of optogenetics, manipulating the activity of neurons and other cells with light. Since the original discovery of channelrhodopsin in the green alga Chlamydomonas, Hegemann and his group have improved its properties by molecular engineering, resulting in a wide variety of designer opsins which are faster, more sensitive, responsive to different colors of light, or conduct different ions than natural channelrhodopsins. These molecular tools have enabled neuroscientists around the world to stimulate genetically defined populations of neurons non-invasively and with great precision.

Awards (selection)
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References
  1. Ninth Annual Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences Awarded to Dr. Peter Hegemann, Dr. Georg Nagel, and Dr. Ernst Bamberg (wiley.com)
  2. Preisträger Archived 2010-07-04 at the Wayback Machine of the Karl Heinz Beckurts Foundation (beckurts-stiftung.de)
  3. Peter Hegemann at the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (leopoldina.org)
  4. "Professor Peter HEGEMANN | Jeantet". October 1, 2017.
  5. Peter Hegemann Archived 2015-12-30 at the Wayback Machine thebrainprize.org
  6. EMBO enlarges its membership for 50th anniversary. Press release
  7. "Hector Wissenschaftspreis geht an HU-Biophysiker — Presseportal". Hu-berlin.de (in German). 2016-01-29. Archived from the original on 2016-02-04. Retrieved 2016-03-01.
  8. News, Stanford. "Deisseroth receives Harvey Prize in Human Health | The Dish". news.stanford.edu.
  9. "Rumford Prize Awarded for the Invention and Refinement of Optogenetics". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 2019-03-12.
  10. "2019 Warren Alpert Prize Recipients Announced | Warren Alpert Foundation Prize". warrenalpert.org. Retrieved 2019-07-16.
  11. Shaw Prize 2020
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