Gero Miesenböck

Education and early life A native of Austria, Miesenböck was educated at the University of Innsbruck and Umeå University in Sweden. he undertook postdoctoral training with James Rothman.

Research and career

Optogenetics Miesenböck is known as the founder of optogenetics. He was the first scientist to modify nerve cells genetically so that their electrical activity could be controlled with light.

The principle of optogenetic control established by Miesenböck

Sleep and mitochondria

Miesenböck's studies in Drosophila melanogaster (fruit flies) point to aerobic metabolism as a root cause of sleep. He discovered that sleep-inducing neurons estimate sleep need by monitoring the flow of electrons through their mitochondria. Sleep loss creates an imbalance between electron supply and ATP demand that diverts electrons from the respiratory chain into side reactions with molecular oxygen, Sleep-control neurons use a redox-active potassium channel subunit to count the release of lipid peroxidation products and transduce this signal into sleep.

Awards and honors In 2012 Miesenböck was awarded the InBev-Baillet Latour International Health Prize

His certificate of election reads: In 2015 he received the Heinrich Wieland Prize

Miesenböck was elected a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) in 2008, and a member of the Academy of Medical Sciences, United Kingdom in 2012, the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina in 2016, the Academia Europaea in 2017, and an international member of the US National Academy of Sciences in 2025.

In 2017, Trinity College Dublin awarded him an honorary doctorate.

In 2019, Miesenböck received the Rumford Prize for "extraordinary contributions related to the invention and refinement of optogenetics," with Ernst Bamberg, Ed Boyden, Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, and Georg Nagel. In 2020 he was awarded the Shaw Prize in Life Sciences, and in 2022 the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize. In 2023 he received the Japan Prize.