2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine: Optogenetics Pioneers Deisseroth, Hegemann and Nagel
STOCKHOLM, Oct. 5 — The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institutet announced on Oct. 5 that the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine goes to American scientist Karl Deisseroth and German scientists Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel, for their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics, according to the Nobel Prize organization and Science News.
The story starts in the eye spot of a single-celled green alga. In the early 2000s, Hegemann, then at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry, and Nagel, at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysics, discovered and characterized channelrhodopsin: when illuminated, the protein opens like a pore, letting positively charged ions flow into a cell and generating an electrical impulse. Deisseroth's team then inserted the gene into cultured rat nerve cells and into neurons in the brains of living mice, using optical fibers to switch specific neurons on and off with blue light — precise enough to control the movement of the rodents' whiskers.
The committee said the technique, soon known as optogenetics, transformed neuroscience by letting researchers test links between specific brain circuits and memory, emotion and behavior, and has revealed how circuits are disrupted in conditions such as blindness, depression and dementia. The same principle is now being tested clinically to restore visual function in advanced retinitis pigmentosa, by giving surviving retinal cells the ability to respond to light.
Source: Nobel Prize organization announcement; Science News, Oct. 5.
The three laureates will share the 12 million Swedish kronor prize. Deisseroth, 54, is at Stanford University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Hegemann, 71, is at Humboldt University of Berlin; and Nagel, 73, is at the University of Würzburg. On the clinical side, Le Monde has reported that in 2021 a patient blinded by retinitis pigmentosa partially regained vision with the help of an optogenetic therapy.
Photo: Army scientists use fluorescent gels to study blast pressure on the brain — Army Research Laboratory / Public Domain (via Openverse)
Related:
2026 Nobel Physics Prize Goes to Neutrino Pioneer Francis Halzen
2026 Nobel Peace Prize Awarded to International Jurist Navi Pillay
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 获奖者之一、光遗传学先驱卡尔·戴瑟罗思（Karl Deisseroth）。摄影：Christopher Michel，CC BY-SA 4.0，Wikimedia Commons
