Gero Andreas Miesenböck was born on July 15, 1965. He is an Austrian scientist. He is now the Waynflete Professor of Physiology and the head of the Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour (CNCB) at the University of Oxford. He is also a member of Magdalen College, Oxford.
Education and early life
Born in Austria, Miesenböck studied at the University of Innsbruck and Umeå University in Sweden. He graduated sub auspiciis praesidentis rei publicae from the University of Innsbruck Medical School. After earning his Doctor of Medicine (MD) in 1993, he completed postdoctoral training with James Rothman.
Research and career
Miesenböck is known as the founder of optogenetics. He was the first scientist to change nerve cells using genetic methods so that their electrical activity could be controlled with light. This process involved adding DNA that codes for proteins called opsins, which respond to light. Miesenböck used similar genetic changes to create animals whose brains had nerve cells that could be controlled by light. He was the first to show that the behavior of these animals could be controlled from a distance using light.
The method of controlling cells with light, developed by Miesenböck, has been used widely in many areas of biology and has been improved over time.
Miesenböck’s research on fruit flies showed that sleep is caused by a process called aerobic metabolism. He found that certain brain cells that cause sleep monitor the movement of electrons inside mitochondria to determine how much sleep is needed. When sleep is lost, an imbalance occurs between the electrons available and the energy needed, which causes electrons to react with oxygen and create harmful molecules. These molecules damage parts of cell membranes. Sleep-control cells use a special type of potassium channel to detect these harmful molecules and send signals that trigger sleep. Miesenböck’s work has explained the molecular reasons behind the need for sleep, identified the processes that build up and release this need, and shown that aerobic metabolism is a key reason for sleep.
Before becoming the Waynflete Professor in 2007, Miesenböck worked at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Yale University. In 2011, he became the first director of the Center for Neural Circuits and Behavior.
In 2012, Miesenböck received the InBev-Baillet Latour International Health Prize for developing optogenetics to control nerve cells and animal behavior. In 2013, he shared the Brain Prize with Ernst Bamberg, Edward Boyden, Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, and Georg Nagel. He also shared the Jacob Heskel Gabbay Award in Biotechnology and Medicine with Edward Boyden and Karl Deisseroth. In 2015, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.
His certificate of election states:
In 2015, Miesenböck received the Heinrich Wieland Prize for creating optogenetics and proving it works. In 2016, he received the Wilhelm Exner Medal.
Miesenböck became a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) in 2008. He joined the Academy of Medical Sciences in the United Kingdom in 2012, the Austrian Academy of Sciences in 2014, the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina in 2016, the Academia Europaea in 2017, and the US National Academy of Sciences in 2025.
In 2017, Trinity College Dublin gave him an honorary doctorate.
In 2019, Miesenböck received the Rumford Prize for important work in developing and improving optogenetics, along with Ernst Bamberg, Ed Boyden, Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, and Georg Nagel. That same year, he, Boyden, Deisseroth, and Hegemann won the Warren Alpert Foundation Prize. In 2020, he received the Shaw Prize in Life Sciences, and in 2022, the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize. In 2023, he received the Japan Prize.