Optogenetics pioneers win the 2026 Nobel Prize in medicine
Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel have won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for optogenetics, a method that uses light to switch individual nerve cells on or off.
The Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm announced on Monday, October 5, 2026 that the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine goes to Karl Deisseroth of Stanford University, Peter Hegemann of Humboldt University Berlin and Georg Nagel of the University of Wurzburg. In the early 2000s Hegemann and Nagel identified channelrhodopsin, a light-sensitive protein from algae that opens a channel in the cell membrane when hit by blue light. Deisseroth then brought it into nerve cells, so researchers could trigger nerve signals with light. The method is now used in labs to study how nerve cells shape memory, emotion and behavior, and it is being explored as a possible treatment approach. The prize is worth 12 million Swedish kronor. Reporting: STAT, Keystone-SDA, The Scientist.