Erwin Neher, born on March 20, 1944, is a German doctor of science and a scientist in the fields of neuroscience and physiology. He is a member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and the European Academy of Sciences, a foreign member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of London, a professor at the University of Göttingen, Germany, and director of the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry.