Background
Neher was born in Mühlheim, Germany.
Neher was born in Mühlheim, Germany.
She received her diploma in biology in 1974, earning a Doctor of Philosophy on biochemistry from the same university. Her thesis was Regulation of the biosynthesis of poly-beta-hydroxybutyrate in Alcaligenes eutrophus H 16.
She founded the Göttingen Xlab and has been its Executive Director since 2000. The Göttingen Xlab is an experimental laboratory for training young people from student to scientist level She is the recipient of many awards including the Lower Saxony State Prize.
Her initial academic education as an undergraduate in microbiology was from 1969 to 1973 at the University of Göttingen.
She then worked in the same university as a staff scientist in 1977. From 1977-1978 she also undertook postdoctoral research at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in the Molecular Biology Department, Göttingen.
While at the Charles Stevens Laboratory at Yale University for post-doctoral work she met Ernst Neher. Their five children – Richard, Benjamin, Carola, Sigmund, and Margret – were born by 1991.
From 1978–1985 she was Staff Scientist at the Institute for Physiological Chemistry at the Georg August University and then till 2000 she was on maternal leave.
During this period she also taught experimental courses in chemistry and biology at the Free Waldorf School, Göttingen. lieutenant was here she developed her approach for the Xlab which she founded in 2000, an experimental laboratory for young people. She has been its Managing and Executive Director ever since.
Xlab has been housed in a separate building on the North Campus since 2004.
When Neher was a Professor at the University of Göttingen, she visited Moscow in June 1999. In 2013, she was a participant in the International Education Forum Hi-Technical Show in Moscow.