Peter Jonas , Dr.
Dr. Peter Jonas studied Medicine at the University of Giessen, Germany. He obtained his MD in 1986 in Physiology in the group of Werner Vogel. After a short time as a postdoc, he moved to the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research, Heidelberg, Germany, as a research assistant, working with the Nobel laureate Bert Sakmann from 1990–1994. In 1994, he took over a position as associate professor at the Technical University of Munich, Germany. In 1995, he accepted a position as full professor and head of department at the University of Freiburg, becoming the youngest full professor of physiology in Germany. In November 2010, he moved to IST Austria as a full professor and founding member of the Neuroscience Research Cluster at the Institute. Peter Jonas received several research prizes, including the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz award, the Fick award, the Tsungming Tu award, two ERC advanced grants, and the Wittgenstein Award of the Austrian Minister of Science, Research and Economy and the Austrian Science Fund. He is elected member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the Academy of Sciences Heidelberg, and the Academia Europaea. Furthermore, he is member of the Board of Reviewing Editors of the journals Science and Neuron. The research interests of Peter Jonas focus on synaptic transmission and plasticity, microcircuit function, GABAergic interneurons, mechanisms of exocytosis, subcellular patch-clamp recording, and quantitative modeling.