Nobel Prize in medicine awarded to three scientists for optogenetics discoveries

The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to three scientists — Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel — for “their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics”, the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet announced on Monday.

Deisseroth is affiliated with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Stanford University in the United States. Hegemann is at Humboldt University of Berlin and Nagel at the University of Würzburg, both in Germany.

The prize recognises optogenetics, a method that makes it possible to show how nerve cells shape memories, feelings and behaviours in the living brain. Hegemann and Nagel discovered channelrhodopsin, a remarkable protein in the single-celled alga Chlamydomonas: when it is illuminated by blue light, a channel opens through the protein, charged ions flow into the cell and create an electrical impulse — and cells of any type put to the test became light-sensitive.

Deisseroth then introduced the gene for channelrhodopsin into nerve cells from rats, and by illuminating them with blue light was able to trigger a nerve signal, publishing the breakthrough in 2005. Two years later he made the light-controlled switch for nerve cells work in the brains of living mice.

“Optogenetics provides opportunities for mapping the brain in a way that we could once only dream of,” said Per Svenningsson, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine. In clinical medicine, researchers are already using the method in attempts to restore sight in people with visual impairment. The laureates share 12 million Swedish kronor equally.

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Sources: NobelPrize.org https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2026/press-release/ ; CNN https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/05/science/nobel-prize-medicine-karl-deisseroth-peter-hegemann-georg-nagel-intl?cid=external-feeds_iluminar_meta