2 Germans Win Nobel Prize for Medicine : Science: The scientists will share the $1-million award for work that sheds new light on such illnesses as cystic fibrosis, diabetes, heart disease and epilepsy.

The 1991 Nobel Prize for medicine was awarded Monday to two German scientists whose exploration of the workings of living cells has shed new light on the causes and treatment of diseases ranging from cystic fibrosis to diabetes, heart disease and epilepsy.

The Nobel Assembly of the Karolinska Institute gave the $1-million award jointly to Erwin Neher, 47, and Bert Sakmann, 49, who together developed a revolutionary method for examining how the signals that command and control cells are transmitted.

By enabling scientists to eavesdrop on the communications within and between individual cells, Neher and Sakmann’s technique has helped illuminate the underlying causes of various conditions and may make it possible to design drugs to treat them.

“This new knowledge and this analytical tool has, during the past 10 years, revolutionized modern biology, facilitated research and contributed to the understanding of the cellular mechanisms underlying several diseases,” the institute said.

In the 1970s, Neher, a physicist at the Max Planck Institute in Goettingen, and Sakmann, a biologist at the Max Planck Institute in Heidelberg, developed a device that tracks the movements of electrically charged atoms, or ions, in and out of cells.

The technique, perfected in 1981, confirmed that ions travel through proteins on the surface of cells. These proteins, or ion channels, have a hole, or pore, in the middle and serve as doors; they control the flow of charged atoms and therefore electrical activity.

Just as an electrocardiograph records the electrical activity of the heart and an electroencephalograph records that of the brain, Neher and Sakmann’s “patch clamp” monitors electrical activity at a single ion channel.

The device consists of a minute glass tube less than one-thousandth of an inch wide attached to an electronic monitoring device. When the tube is placed on the surface of a cell, it becomes possible to record tiny electrical currents.

“It allowed everyone access to many types of cells, including human, living cells,” said Francisco Bezanilla, a professor of physiology at UCLA. “With that, we can start recording electrical events across the membranes of cells which before were not available.”

“It’s something that everybody would agree deserves a Nobel Prize, without any question,” said Charles F. Stevens, a neurobiologist at the Salk Institute in La Jolla and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

According to Stevens, who is using the the technique in studying memory, it offered a “first step toward understanding how the brain does its computations” by revealing precisely how ion channels generate electrical activity in the brain.

The patch clamp has helped show that ion channels play important roles in fertilization, heartbeat, secretion of insulin and other hormones, sensory transduction in the eye and ear, and muscle contraction, said Henry A. Lester, a professor of biology at Caltech who worked with Neher several years ago.

Earlier this year, Neher and Sakmann’s technique led to the discovery that cystic fibrosis is a disease of the ion channels--a finding that researchers say may eventually lead to treatments to bypass the defect.

In other areas, the technique has helped scientists understand more precisely how certain diabetes and heart-disease drugs work. Researchers say it is likely eventually to make it possible to fine-tune existing drugs and design new ones.

The technique may “make it possible to design drugs that attack their target better and have fewer unwanted side effects on other channels,” said Lester.

In telegrams to Neher and Sakmann, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl predicted, “Many people with terrible afflictions will be grateful to you.”

At a press conference, Sakmann said the real thrill lay in scientific discovery.

“The most exciting minutes and hours are when one discovers something,” he said. “The dream is to discover something really exciting. I wouldn’t say that the honors later are secondary, but they are not as important.”

Reached at his home in Goettingen, Neher said he was honored and exhilarated by the news. A father of five, he said he was celebrating with his neighbors--”a little champagne, and orange juice for the children.”

He said he was unsure what he would do with his prize money. “Maybe another trip through the beautiful American Southwest,” said Neher, who has studied at the University of Wisconsin and at Yale University and spent the 1988-89 academic year at Caltech.

Lester, who said the Nobel Prize “couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,” remembered Neher as “soft-spoken, friendly, precise”--a man who, in his spare time, enjoyed boogie boarding with his children in the Santa Monica surf.

“Neher was interested in making fundamental discoveries in biology based on his background in physics,” said Lester. “And he understood, perhaps better than anyone, how to make the right measurements.”

How did he do that? Lester was asked.

“He thought better. He was smarter.”

Times staff writer Tamara Jones in Bonn contributed to this story.

Nobel Prize / Medicine

* Who: Erwin Neher, 47, and Bert Sakmann, 49

* Country: Germany

* Affiliation: Neher is at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Goettingen, Sakmann at the Planck Institute for Medicine Research in Heidelberg. Neher was at Caltech in 1988-89.

* Distinction: Their research in basic cell functioning has created better understanding of such diseases as diabetes and cystic fibrosis.

* Work Saluted: The scientists discovered how tunnel-like structures called ion channels regulate the passage in and out of cells of positively or negatively charged particles--ions. That created a way to measure small electrical currents and led to understanding of how the body regulates hormones and the mechanics of insulin secretion.

* Citation: “With the help of the technique of Neher and Sakmann, it is now possible to tailor-make drugs, to achieve an optimal effect on particular ion channels of importance in a given disease,” the Nobel Assembly said.

* Award: About $1 million