Günter Blobel was born in Waltersdorf in the Prussian Province of Lower Silesia, then located in eastern Germany.

After two years service in a medical internship, he moved to Madison, Wisconsin, following an older brother, enrolling in the University of Wisconsin–Madison and, joining the lab of Van R. Potter for his graduate work.

Blobel died of cancer in Manhattan at New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center on February 18, 2018 at the age of 81.

[3][4] By the time of his death, Blobel was described as having "ushered cell biology into the molecular age" through his work on the fractionation and reconstitution of functional protein complexes and sub-cellular components in vitro.

In Leipzig he pursued a rebuilding of the Paulinerkirche, the university church of the University of Leipzig, which had been blown up by the communist regime of East Germany in 1968, arguing "this is a shrine of German cultural history, connected to the most important names in German cultural history.