Nobel Prize in medicine goes to the light switch for brain cells
Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel have won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The prize rewards optogenetics, a method that switches nerve cells on and off with light. The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm announced it on Monday, according to its press release.
Deisseroth works at Stanford University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in the US. Hegemann is a professor at Humboldt University of Berlin, and Nagel at the University of Würzburg. The two German scientists made their discoveries at Max Planck institutes in Martinsried and Frankfurt. They will share the prize money of 12 million Swedish kronor equally.
“Optogenetics provides opportunities for mapping the brain in a way that we could once only dream of,” said Per Svenningsson, who chairs the Nobel Committee.
A switch from an alga
The work began with a single-celled green alga, Chlamydomonas, which swims towards light....
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