Eva Johannes received her Ph. D. in 1989 at the Justus Liebig University Giessen in Germany (where as rumors go August Koehler developed the famous Koehler illumination as a student) researching the thermodynamics and kinetics of amino acid and proton transport across plant cell membranes. For this she employed mainly electrophysiological methods, inserting micro-electrodes into plant cells under microscopic control.<\/p>\n
During her post-doc years at the University of York, UK, where she held a prestigious 5 year BBSRC Fellowship (BBSRC is the British equivalent to NSF) she analyzed the properties of calcium permeable channels in the vacuolar membrane of plant cells with the patch clamp method and elucidated the relationship between ion channels and signal transduction. During this time she started to develop a keen interest in using digital imaging of ratiometric fluorescent dyes to monitor intracellular ion activities which she pursued in Dr. Nina Allen\u2019s lab.<\/p>\n