Stefan H. Heinemann is professor of biophysics at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena and Jena University Hospital (Germany). He has a background in ion channel biophysics, physiology and molecular medicine. In particular, he studies disease-causing mutations in ion channel genes and investigates the molecular pharmacology of channel-directed drugs.

A major research focus for Heinemann is centered around pharmacological modulation of cellular excitability, and in particular, the potential treatment of autism spectrum disorder symptoms by activators of large-conductance calcium-activated potassium channel (BK_Ca) complexes.

Heinemann studied physics at the University of Göttingen (Germany) and received his Ph.D. under the guidance of Nobel Laureate Erwin Neher at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry. He was a research assistant at Yale Medical School (in the laboratory of Frederick Sigworth), a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University (in Richard Aldrich’s lab) and a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry (in Walter Stühmer’s lab). He headed a Max Planck junior group for molecular and cellular biophysics at Jena University Hospital, was associate professor of molecular and cellular physiology at Jena University Hospital and was subsequently promoted to full professor of molecular and cellular biophysics at both the University of Jena and Jena University Hospital.