The 2026 Nobel for Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, and Georg Nagel for their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics, a technique that has transformed the study of the brain. The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm announced this today.
To understand how the brain forms memories, feelings, and behaviours has long been a dream for researchers. Per Svenningsson, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine said, Optogenetics makes it possible to switch on or off the activity of individual nerve cells in a living brain.
According to an official statement, Hegemann and Nagel discovered channelrhodopsin, a protein with unique properties. They found that regardless of which cell they put the protein in, those cells became light-sensitive.
Hegemann’s research helped reveal how certain microorganisms sense light through specialised proteins. Nagel subsequently helped demonstrate that these proteins could function as light-controlled ion channels.
Deisseroth is a professor of bioengineering, psychiatry, and behavioural sciences at Stanford University in the US. Hegemann, a German biophysicist, studied light-sensitive proteins in microorganisms.
Nagel, a German neuroscientist, contributed to the discovery and characterisation of microbial opsins and demonstrated their potential as light-controlled ion channels.