Nobel-winning light research aids parasite study at BITS Pilani

The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine highlights how light can control biological processes, connecting brain research to parasite studies in India.

The Discovery

Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, and Georg Nagel won the Nobel Prize for discovering light-gated ion channels and optogenetics. Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel discovered channelrhodopsin in the early 2000s, an algal protein that opens when hit by blue light and creates electrical impulses. In 2005 and 2007, Karl Deisseroth showed that putting this protein into rat and mouse neurons let researchers trigger nerve signals using light.

Parasite Research

Nishith Gupta, a professor of Biological Sciences at BITS Pilani in Hyderabad, collaborated with Peter Hegemann over decades at Humboldt University of Berlin. Their joint work extended light-based control beyond neuroscience to study Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite that infects humans, mammals, and birds. They used a light-regulated enzyme called adenylate cyclase to produce cyclic AMP, showing that light can control how the parasite enters, moves inside, and exits cells in a 2013 study.

Context

Optogenetics uses light-sensitive proteins to control selected cells or biological processes. This field grew from basic curiosity about how single-celled algae swim toward light, showing how fundamental science can create powerful tools for medicine and biology.