Günter Blobel

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Günter Blobel (born May 21, 1936) is a German-American biologist.

Blobel was born in Waltersdorf, in Silesia in Germany (now Niegoslawice, Poland). He graduated at the University of Tübingen in 1960 and received his Ph.D. from University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1967. He was appointed to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 1986.

Blobel was awarded the 1999 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery that newly synthesized proteins contain "address tags" which direct them to the proper location within the cell. This is known as protein targeting.

As of 2003, Blobel works at the Rockefeller University, New York.

Blobel is also well-known for his direct and active support for the rebuilding of Dresden, in Germany, becoming, in 1994, the founder and president of the nonprofit "Friends of Dresden, Inc." and then donating all of the Nobel award money to the restoration of Dresden, in particular for the rebuilding of the Frauenkirche [completed in 2005] and the building of a new synagogue.

Blobel lives on Manhattan's Upper East Side with his wife and three English setters.

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