Rainer Hedrich pioneered the identification, characterization and biology of plant ion channels. Working with guard cells since 1981 in his PhD work he 1984 using the patch-clamp technique proved for the first time the existents of plant ion channels. Following this brake through he studied the structure function and regulation of key channels in the plasma membrane, vacuole and chloroplast. Latter he solved structure-function relation of channel genes and identified hormone- and light-dependent regulation of channel genes and proteins. Besides the transport field he is known in the field of guard cell turgor- and osmo-regulation. Rainer Hedrich was postdoc with Prof Erwin Neher at the Max-Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry at Goettingen. In 1991 he became head of Institute for Biophysics at the University of Hannover. Since 1996 he is head of department for Molecular Plant Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Wuerzburg. Rainer Hedrich is member of the German `Academy of Sciences, Leopoldina´.