The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has gone to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel for discoveries involving light-gated ion channels and optogenetics.
The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm announced the award on Monday. Their work has transformed how scientists investigate the brain and its complex neural activity.
Researchers have long sought to understand how the brain creates memories, feelings and behaviour. Optogenetics now allows them to switch individual nerve cells on or off inside a living brain.
“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.
Hegemann and Nagel discovered channelrhodopsin, a protein that can make cells sensitive to light. Their research showed that cells became light-sensitive when scientists introduced the protein into them.
Deisseroth later introduced the channelrhodopsin gene into rat nerve cells. Blue light triggered nerve signals in those cells. He then developed the technique to control nerve cells inside living mice.
Scientists now use optogenetics to map neural circuits linked to specific memories, feelings and behaviours. The technique could improve understanding of neurological and psychiatric disorders.
Researchers are exploring its clinical potential to restore sight in people with visual impairment. Deisseroth is a professor of bioengineering, psychiatry and behavioural sciences at Stanford University.
German biophysicists Hegemann and Nagel studied microbial light-sensitive proteins and helped establish their role as light-controlled ion channels.
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