Autobiographie

I was born during the second world war in Stuttgart, the capital of Swebia, as the first of two children. My father, Bertold Sakmann, was the director of a theatre, the third son of a physician whose family had lived in southern Germany for several generations. My mother, Annemarie Sakmann, was a physiotherapist and was born in Bangkok, the second child of a Prussian physician who served as doctor to the King of Siam and was the founder of the first hospital in Siam.

I began my scientific career in the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft in 1966 and, with the exception of three postdoctoral years (1970-1973) at University College, London, I have remained affiliated with this organisation ever since. The ideal working conditions provided by this organisation have been invaluable. I am currently the Director of the Department of Cell Physiology at the Max-Planck-Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg as well as, at present, the Acting Director of this Institute. Most of the major awards were given to me jointly with Erwin Neher, with whom I share also the Nobel Prize. These earlier awards were the Bunsen Prize, the Feldberg Prize, the Spencer Prize, the Leibniz Prize, the Gross-Horwitz Prize, the Louis Jeantet Prize and the Gairdner Prize. For me the most important awards, before I shared the Nobel Prize, were the Magnes Award of the Hebrew University (1982) and Harvey Prize of the Technion (1991). I am glad to be the first German scientist to receive these awards.

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