Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2026 goes to Deisseroth, Hegemann and Nagel for optogenetics
5 October 2026
The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel.
The citation reads "for their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics".
Hegemann and Nagel discovered channelrhodopsin, an algal protein, in the single-celled alga Chlamydomonas.
Deisseroth introduced the gene for channelrhodopsin into rat nerve cells and triggered a nerve signal with blue light; he published this in 2005.
Two years later he made the light-controlled switch work in the brains of living mice.
Deisseroth is at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Stanford University, USA; Hegemann at Humboldt University of Berlin and Nagel at the University of Würzburg, both in Germany.
In plain words
Optogenetics Light-controlled gene-based neuroscience method — A method that makes it possible to show how nerve cells shape memories, feelings and behaviours in the living brain.
Channelrhodopsin Light-gated algal ion channel protein — An algal protein that opens a channel when lit by blue light, letting charged ions into the cell.