Martin Heisenberg is a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 neurobiologist and geneticist

Genetics

Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....

. Before his retirement in 2008, he held the professorial chair for genetics and neurobiology at the Bio Centre of the University of Würzburg

University of Würzburg

The University of Würzburg is a university in Würzburg, Germany, founded in 1402. The university is a member of the distinguished Coimbra Group.-Name:...

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Heisenberg studied chemistry and molecular biology in Munich, Tübingen and Pasadena. In 1975 he became Professor of genetics and neurobiology at the University of Würzburg. Heisenberg's work has focused on the neurogenetics of Drosophila

Drosophila

Drosophila is a genus of small flies, belonging to the family Drosophilidae, whose members are often called "fruit flies" or more appropriately pomace flies, vinegar flies, or wine flies, a reference to the characteristic of many species to linger around overripe or rotting fruit...

 (the fruit fly), with the aim of investigating the genetic foundations of the Drosophila brain by studying the effect of genetic mutations on brain function. He was elected as a member of the Leopoldina

Leopoldina

Leopoldina is a municipality in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. , it has a population of 51,136.It is situated in the southeastern Zona da Mata mesoregion of the state....

 in 1989.

Martin Heisenberg is married to Apollonia, Countess of Eulenburg, a niece of philosopher and physicist Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker

Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker

Carl Friedrich Freiherr von Weizsäcker was a German physicist and philosopher. He was the longest-living member of the research team which performed nuclear research in Germany during the Second World War, under Werner Heisenberg's leadership...

 and former President Richard von Weizsäcker

Richard von Weizsäcker

Richard Karl Freiherr von Weizsäcker , known as Richard von Weizsäcker, is a German politician . He served as Governing Mayor of West Berlin from 1981 to 1984, and as President of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1984 to 1994...

. They have four sons, including film director Benjamin Heisenberg. He is the brother of Jochen Heisenberg

Jochen Heisenberg

Jochen Heisenberg is a German physicist specializing in nuclear physics, and Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of New Hampshire. He is the son of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Werner Heisenberg, who is best known for the uncertainty principle...

, a professor of physics recently retired from the University of New Hampshire. He is the son of Nobel Prize

Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...

-winning physicist Werner Heisenberg

Werner Heisenberg

Werner Karl Heisenberg was a German theoretical physicist who made foundational contributions to quantum mechanics and is best known for asserting the uncertainty principle of quantum theory...

, who is best known for the uncertainty principle

Uncertainty principle

In quantum mechanics, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle states a fundamental limit on the accuracy with which certain pairs of physical properties of a particle, such as position and momentum, can be simultaneously known...

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