TWO GERMANS WIN NOBEL PRIZE IN MEDICINE FOR CELL RESEARCH

Author: By Karin Strand, Associated Press

Date: Tuesday, October 8, 1991
Page: 4
Section: NATIONAL/FOREIGN

Awarded the $1 million prize by the Nobel Assembly of the Karolinska Institute were Erwin Neher, 47, and Bert Sakmann, 49, of the Max-Planck Institutes in Goettingen and Heidelberg, Germany.

Through their findings, "researchers have been able to look at old medicines with new eyes and it is now possible to tailor-make a drug in order to achieve an optimal effect," said Alf Lindberg, secretary of the Nobel Assembly.

It is unusual for Nobel Prize winners to be so young, but the methods developed by Neher and Sakmanns are now used worldwide by scientists.

Their technique was perfected in 1981, and was used immediately to test and modify existing medicine.

"My friends once in a while told me jokingly, 'What you're doing is worth the Nobel Prize,' " Neher told the Swedish news agency TT.

Their major discovery -- a way to record and observe the ion channels or tunnel-like passageways from the inside to the outside of a cell -- was made in the mid-70s.

The technique led to modification and improvement of existing medicines, but the discovery is so recent it has yet to result in any new drugs, said Sten Grillner, a Karolinska scientist.

Scientists estimate that new "designer drugs" stemming from the two Germans' work are five to 10 years away.

The Nobel Assembly said the two Germans' work is used in the study of such diseases as cystic fibrosis and diabetes, as well as cardiovascular and neuro- muscular disorders, epilepsy and anxiety.

It said Neher and Sakmann "conclusively established that ion channels do exist and how they function."

An ion channel is like a tunnel running from the inside of a cell to the outside. Cells communicate with one another using the 20 to 40 ion channels that each has.

Grillner compared the ion channels to doors. By introducing medicines, doctors could block a door or keep it open for a longer period, thus reaching the desirable effect.

In diseases such as cystic fibrosis, a glandular disorder that strikes one child out of 2,000, the ion channels have a deficiency. Before Neher's and Sakmann's discoveries, scientists trying to find the cause of the disorder were "fumbling in the dark," said Jan Wersall, another Karolinska scientist.

"Now we know the background of the disease and how the medicine works," he said.

Neher and Sakmann developed a thin, glass micro-pipette, one-thousandth of a millimeter in diameter, which allowed them to see the ions as an electrical current.

Through a refinement of the electronic equipment and experimental conditions, they succeeded in measuring this microscopic current.

Lindberg said that when he telephoned the laureates with the news, Neher told him, "Now I'm closing shop for the day."

Sakmann "jumped to the ceiling for joy and responded, 'This is fantastic,' " he added.

Neher, who is married with five children, has a physics degree from the Technical University in Munich and a master's degree from the University of Wisconsin.

Sakmann has a medical degree from the University of Munich and from 1971 to 1973 studied biophysics in London. One of his mentors was the 1970 Nobel Prize winner, Bernhard Katz. Sakmann is married with three children.

Since World War II, Americans have dominated Nobel prizes in medicine, with 60 laureates compared to Europe's 45 and just a handful from the rest of the world.

Including Neher and Sakmann, 14 Germans have been awarded the prize since 1901.

The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Oct. 14 in Oslo. The economics prize will be announced on Oct. 15, and the prizes for physics and chemistry on Oct. 16, in Stockholm.

Last Thursday, South African novelist Nadine Gordimer won the literature prize.

The prizes are to be presented on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the death of Swedish dynamite inventor and industrialist Alfred Nobel, who endowed them.

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