Erwin Neher, a Nobel laureate and biophysicist at the Macau University of Science and Technology (MUST), has won the Chinese Government Friendship Award.
According to the China Daily, the German scientist is the first expatriate based in either Macao or Hong Kong to be given the accolade, which is among the highest honours China bestows on foreigners.
“Receiving the Chinese Government Friendship Award [is] a great and unexpected honour,” Neher told the paper.
He was among 100 foreigners presented with the award this year, with a ceremony taking place at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing earlier this week.
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MUST President Joseph Lee said that the award was a well-deserved recognition of Neher’s work and praised the scientist as a “role model” in efforts to strengthen scientific exchanges between China and Germany.
A leading figure in biomedicine, Neher shared the 1991 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with German cell physiologist Bert Sakmann. Their discoveries of the functions of single ion channels in cells has had a revolutionary impact on neuroscience and cell biology. He joined MUST in 2016.
