Nobel Prize in Medicine Goes to Optogenetics Pioneers Who Learned to Switch Brain Cells On With Light
Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel honoured for work now being tested to restore sight
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File photo: Stanford neuroscientist Karl Deisseroth, one of the three 2026 Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine. Photo: Christopher Michel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to US scientist Karl Deisseroth and German researchers Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel for their work on optogenetics, a technique that lets scientists switch brain cells on and off using light.
A switch for the brain
The Nobel Assembly announced the award on Monday at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. The trio were honoured for their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics, DW reported.
"Optogenetics has fundamentally altered our understanding of the brain," the Nobel Assembly said. "Every day brings new discoveries, helping to solve one of humanity's great mysteries: how our incredible brain works."
The story began with a single-celled green alga that swims towards light. In the early 2000s, Hegemann and Nagel discovered channelrhodopsin, an algal protein that opens a channel and creates an electrical impulse when hit by blue light. Deisseroth then worked out how to use this light-controlled protein to switch on nerve cells in the brains of living mice.
What the committee said
The Nobel Committee said: "Using light, researchers are now able to switch individual neural circuits on or off in the brain. They can bring memories to life, create feelings, drive behaviours and study the types of neurons that are involved in various psychiatric and neurological disorders."
Per Svenningsson, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine, said: "Optogenetics provides opportunities for mapping the brain in a way that we could once only dream of."
From mice to patients
Researchers have taken "the first steps" towards using optogenetics as a medical treatment, the committee said. In ongoing clinical trials, scientists are working to restore vision in people blinded by retinitis pigmentosa, a disease that destroys the eye's rods and cones. After a special protein was inserted into the damaged part of the eye, a patient regained some vision while wearing glasses that emit light, the BBC reported.
Scientists also hope the field could one day lead to treatments for conditions such as Parkinson's disease and epilepsy, according to DW.
Who the winners are
Hegemann is a professor at Humboldt University of Berlin and is seen as one of the founding fathers of optogenetics. Nagel is a biophysicist at the University of Würzburg, while Deisseroth is a professor of bioengineering and of psychiatry and behavioural sciences at Stanford University.
The winners said it was "absolutely wonderful" to receive the award. They will share prize money of 12 million Swedish kronor, about $1.2 million, at a ceremony in Stockholm on December 10. The medicine prize is the first of this year's Nobels, with physics, chemistry, literature and peace to follow this week.
