Reinhard Jahn (born 21 December 1950) is a German

biophysicist Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study Biology, biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from Molecule, molecular to organismic ...

and neurobiologist known for his studies of cellular membrane fusion. For these investigations, he has been honored with numerous awards, including the 2000 Leibniz Award. Jahn is currently Director at the

Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry The Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry (german: Max-Planck-Institut für biophysikalische Chemie), also known as the Karl-Friedrich Bonhoeffer Institute (german: Karl-Friedrich-Bonhoeffer-Institut), was a research institute of the Ma ...

and the President of the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...

, Germany.

Early life and education

Reinhard Jahn was born in

Leverkusen Leverkusen () is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, on the eastern bank of the Rhine. To the south, Leverkusen borders the city of Cologne, and to the north the state capital, Düsseldorf. With about 161,000 inhabitants, Leverkusen is o ...

, Germany in 1950. He moved to Göttingen to study biology and biochemistry. Working in the lab of Hans-Dieter Söling, in 1981 he received a PhD from the University of Göttingen.

Career and research

Dr. Jahn moved to New York City to work as a postdoc in the lab of

Paul Greengard Paul Greengard (December 11, 1925 – April 13, 2019) was an American neuroscientist best known for his work on the molecular and cellular function of neurons. In 2000, Greengard, Arvid Carlsson and Eric Kandel were awarded the Nobel Prize for ...

, where he went on to become an Assistant Professor at

The Rockefeller University The Rockefeller University is a private biomedical research and graduate-only university in New York City, New York. It focuses primarily on the biological and medical sciences and provides doctoral and postdoctoral education. It is classified ...

. In 1986 he returned to Germany as a Junior Group Leader at the

Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry The Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry (MPIB) is a research institute of the Max Planck Society located in Martinsried, a suburb of Munich. The institute was founded in 1973 by the merger of three formerly independent institutes: the Max Planck ...

in Munich. In 1991 he moved to

New Haven New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...

to join the faculty at the

Yale School of Medicine The Yale School of Medicine is the graduate medical school at Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was founded in 1810 as the Medical Institution of Yale College and formally opened in 1813. The primary te ...

, where he became a

Howard Hughes Medical Institute The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is an American non-profit medical research organization based in Chevy Chase, Maryland. It was founded in 1953 by Howard Hughes, an American business magnate, investor, record-setting pilot, engineer, fil ...

Investigator. He was recruited back to his alma mater to become Director at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, position which he holds currently. In 2019 he was additionally elected as President of the University of Göttingen.

Awards and honors

* 1990: Max Planck Research Award * 2000:

Leibniz Prize The Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize (german: link=no, Förderpreis für deutsche Wissenschaftler im Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz-Programm der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft), in short Leibniz Prize, is awarded by the German Research Foundation to ...

* 2004: Member of the

Leopoldina Leopoldina may refer to: * Colônia Leopoldina, a Brazilian municipality in the state of Alagoa * Leopoldina, Minas Gerais, a Brazilian municipality in the state of Minas Gerais * Maria Leopoldina of Austria (1797-1826), consort of emperor Pedro I ...

* 2006:

Ernst Jung Prize The Ernst Jung Prize is a prize awarded annually for excellence in biomedical sciences. The Ernst Jung Foundation, funded by Hamburg merchant Ernst Jung in 1967, has awarded the Ernst Jung Prize in Medicine, now €300,000, since 1976, and the lif ...

* 2008: Sir Bernard Katz Prize * 2010: Lower Saxony Science Award * 2014: Heinrich Wieland Prize * 2015: Foreign associate of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

(United States) * 2015: Member of the

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of Humanities, Letters, Law, and Sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europea ...

* 2015: Full member of the

Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities The Göttingen Academy of Sciences (german: Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen)Note that the German ''Wissenschaft'' has a wider meaning than the English "Science", and includes Social sciences and Humanities. is the second oldest of the se ...

* 2016: Communitas Prize of the

Max Planck Society The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (german: Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften e. V.; abbreviated MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes. ...

* 2016: Balzan Prize

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jahn, Reinhard 1950 births Living people Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences German biochemists Howard Hughes Medical Investigators Members of Academia Europaea Members of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina University of Göttingen alumni Max Planck Institute directors