Erwin Neher: Laureate on a mission

Erwin Neher, director of a lab for innovative drug discovery at MUST, gives an interview to China Daily in Macau

German Nobel laureate Erwin Neher has a close affinity with traditional Chinese medicine, saying the potential of TCM, with a history of more than 2,000 years, has drawn him to the Macau Special Administrative Region to deepen his research in the field.

The renowned biophysicist, specializing in cell physiology, holds true to his belief with a resounding vote of confidence in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area’s bid to be a world-class innovation and technology hub that could take on Silicon Valley.

Neher, who was appointed by the Macau University of Science and Technology in 2016 to head a biophysics laboratory named in his honor, won the 2024 Chinese Government Friendship Award in late September, becoming the first expatriate scientist in the Hong Kong and Macau SARs to receive the nation’s top friendship award. The prize was created in 1991 in recognition of foreign experts’ outstanding contributions to China’s development.

TCM enthusiast

Neher’s story with China is one of serendipity, driven by his immense interest in TCM.

The honor of being awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1991 along with German cell physiologist Bert Sakmann won Neher worldwide fame as countries made a beeline for his counsel and academic expertise.

“I did get offers, of course. But the offer here was particularly attractive because I’m going to learn more about the ingredients of traditional Chinese medicine,” he tells China Daily in an exclusive interview in Macau.

“I’ve always been interested in traditional Chinese medicine, and I saw potential in using the techniques I had developed to study the components that you can isolate from traditional Chinese medicine formulations,” he says, referring to his job at the MUST lab where he combines his research on ion channels with TCM to explore the effects of some small molecules in Chinese herbal medicine through ion channels to find solutions for various diseases.

A longtime fan of TCM, Neher jumped on the chance, saying it’s a continuation of his research from the 1980s in which he and Sakmann developed a new technology to record the abnormal activity of ion channels that are closely linked to conditions like cancer, inflammation, Alzheimer’s disease and stroke.

Neher is convinced that TCM, developed over thousands of years in China, has identified substances that work in various ways. He says formulations of TCM contain numerous substances that influence the human body’s signal mechanisms. “We have learned so much in the past 30 to 50 years about these signals (in our bodies) that it’s time to look into the formulations of TCM.” Besides doing academic research with TCM, the biophysicist, who is currently recovering from a fractured ankle, says that he is trying some TCM given to him by a friend to speed up bone regeneration.

“I must say I don’t know many other laboratories in this field. But what’s here is very impressive. The school has basically everything in terms of analytical instrumentation that you can imagine.”

The MUST lab is supported by the Science and Technology Development Fund (FDCT) – a research fund set up by the Macau SAR government in 2004. Members of the lab are also accessible to national funding programs.

Neher says the funds have enabled the facility to compete with others. In 2020, the FDCT allocated 170 million patacas ($21.21 million) for 141 scientific research projects. The funding grew to 300 million patacas for 200 projects in 2021, and to 350 million patacas for 214 projects in 2022.

Observing progress

Currently, Macau has 10 higher education institutions and four State Key Laboratories. In November 2023, the Macau SAR government unveiled a plan for the city’s economic diversification from 2024 to 2028, pledging to strive for substantive progress in developing the innovation and technology industry.

Its cooperation zone with Guangdong province, established in September 2021 on Zhuhai’s Hengqin Island, has so far created 30 national and provincial-level technological innovation platforms. The zone encompasses incubators for technology firms, and research and development institutions, with about 300 firms recognized as “national high-tech companies”, and with more than 40 specialized enterprises.

Over the years, Macau has also set up two national co-working spaces – the Macau Young Entrepreneur Incubation Centre and the University of Macau Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship – to provide workspaces and support services for local technological innovation teams.

Neher is impressed by the substantial growth he has seen in Macau’s scientific infrastructure in the past eight years. “Things are happening here, maybe 10 times faster than in my home country, Germany,” he says, noting that every time he returns to Macau, he finds much progress has been made in architecture, laboratories and equipment.

The laureate lauds China’s readiness to adopt innovative approaches, which he finds more constructive than the often skeptical attitude in Germany to wards new developments.

In his view, Chinese people’s willingness to integrate new methods of communication, payment and other advancements into their daily lives has fostered an ecosystem ripe for technological breakthroughs. “The Chinese government is making huge efforts to take the country forward by improving and amplifying science and engineering, particularly in medical sciences.”

In 2019, the same year when the outline development plan for the Greater Bay Area was revealed, Neher became director of the Shenzhen Neher Neural Plasticity Laboratory on the recommendation of a Chinese student of his. It’s the first “Nobel lab” for neuroscience at the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

“I see Shenzhen as being the most rapidly developing area in the world,” says Neher, adding that the country’s tech and innovation hub has a highly appealing talent program that attracts individuals at all levels, positioning the city as a technological leader in various aspects globally.

He believes the Hong Kong and Macau SARs, combined with Shenzhen, have the potential to emulate Silicon Valley in the future, and the Greater Bay Area will become a world innovation center.

Basic research is key

“But my position is always that, in order to get really new insight, one also needs to do basic research which just asks how things work.”

For any person aiming to be the first to make a genuine breakthrough in drug development, one must grasp the underlying principles better than others with the same goal, he says, and greater support must be given to fundamental research to strike a balance between it and practical applications.

Citing the European Research Council, which allocates grants to individuals supporting research teams for five years on topics that promise fundamental knowledge breakthroughs, Neher suggests that Macau, besides funding innovation, new products and medicines, could introduce more programs to support basic research to attract Nobel laureates like himself.

Chinese scientists are already making significant contributions to the international exchange of knowledge, he says, as evidenced by their growing presence at major events like the recent World Life Science Conference in Hainan province which Neher attended. “Chinese scientists do play an increasing role in that international dialogue.”

Neher attributed his path to a Nobel Prize to his early interest in research when he became fascinated with various subjects, including technology, electronics, horology and biology. It was through those interests that he discovered his passion for biophysical research and decided to focus on this field.

However, according to Neher, a good scientist requires a certain mindset. “You need to have an inquisitive kind of mind, the ability to identify a problem and to be so captivated by that problem that you hardly stop thinking about it and will think about it from all angles.”

He says scientists may possess the ability to design experiments with positive expectations to solve problems effectively, but they may get disappointed because it’s inevitable that experiments rarely yield immediate results. With luck, a scientist with a brilliant mind can navigate these challenges by contemplating mechanisms thoroughly.

Asked what it would take to win the Nobel Prize, Neher refers to what a colleague had once told him: The number one rule – there is no rule at all. Stephy Zhang, China Daily

Neher’s biography

1963-66

Studied physics at the Technical University of Munich

1967

Obtained Master of Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison

1970

Obtained doctorate in physics from the Technical University of Munich

1972-82

Research associate at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry

1975-76

Research associate at Yale University

1983-2011

Director of the Membrane Biophysics Department at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry

1989

Fairchild Scholar at the California Institute of Technology

1991

Awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine

2016

Appointed director of Dr Neher’s Biophysics Laboratory for Innovative Drug Discovery at the Macau University of Science and Technology

2019

Became director of the Neher Neural Plasticity Nobel Prize Laboratory at the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences

2024

Received the Chinese Government Friendship Award