Nobel medicine prize goes to three scientists for light-based brain control technique

UPDATE - follow-up to 2026 Nobel medicine prize: Trio wins for optogenetics work: Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, and Georg Nagel have won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for developing optogenetics, a technique that lets researchers control specific nerve cells using light.

The Discovery

In the 1990s, Peter Hegemann found that light triggered an electric signal in a microscopic alga named Chlamydomonas. Around 2000, he teamed up with Georg Nagel to identify two light-sensitive protein channels called channelrhodopsin-1 and channelrhodopsin-2. Channelrhodopsin-2 allowed charged ions to flow into cells rapidly and create electric signals. They proved that placing the gene for this protein in mammal cells made those cells sensitive to light as well.

Brain Research

At Stanford University, Karl Deisseroth realized this discovery could help study the brain with high precision. By using genetic methods to put the protein in specific neurons, researchers could use light to turn those cells on or off. His team published their first major result with rat neurons, and the technique got its name in 2006. In 2007, his group stimulated neurons in live mice using light sent through a slender fibre-optic cable to move their whiskers.

Applications

Optogenetics has helped scientists study networks in the brain tied to pain, attention, sleep, memories, and social behaviours. The prize winners will share 12 million Swedish kronor. Today, the technique helps researchers study conditions like schizophrenia, depression, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's diseases, and test treatments to restore lost vision and hearing.

Context

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is one of the world's highest scientific honours, awarded yearly for groundbreaking discoveries that benefit humanity. Optogenetics combines optics and genetics to give researchers precise control over living tissue with light.