🏅 Nobel Prize in Medicine Awarded for Teaching Neurons to Be Switched On by Light
The 2026 Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Deisseroth (Stanford/HHMI), Hegemann, and Nagel for discoveries in the field of light-gated ion channels and optogenetics — 12 million kronor divided equally. Hegemann and Nagel found channelrhodopsins in the alga Chlamydomonas, and Deisseroth in 2005 triggered a pulse in neurons with light.
🌍 Optogenetics has turned neuroscience into a causal science: specific types of neurons can now be switched on and off with millisecond precision. This is used to study depression, epilepsy, and Parkinson's disease, and trials are attempting to restore vision in hereditary blindness.
👤 The combination of "insert a light-sensitive protein — control with light" grew out of curiosity about how an alga swims toward light: a short blue pulse makes the desired neuron fire, while neighboring ones are unaffected.
Source 1: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2026/press-release/