STOCKHOLM | American scientist Karl Deisseroth and German researchers Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel have won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries that gave scientists a powerful way to control individual nerve cells with light, opening new possibilities for understanding how the brain produces memories, emotions and behavior.
The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet announced the award on Monday, recognizing the three scientists for their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics. The technique allows researchers to switch selected nerve cells on or off with pulses of light, providing a level of precision that has transformed modern neuroscience.
The breakthrough began with Hegemann’s study of Chlamydomonas, a single-celled green alga that moves toward light. Hegemann and Nagel discovered a light-sensitive protein called channelrhodopsin. When exposed to blue light, the protein opens a channel that allows charged ions to enter a cell and generate an electrical signal.
Deisseroth then adapted the discovery for neuroscience. By introducing the gene responsible for channelrhodopsin into nerve cells, he and his colleagues demonstrated that light could be used to control neuronal activity. The breakthrough was first demonstrated in cultured nerve cells in 2005 and later in the brains of living mice in 2007.
The technique has since become a major research tool worldwide. Scientists can use optogenetics to investigate neural circuits involved in memory, emotion and behavior and to study how those circuits are disrupted in neurological and psychiatric disorders. Researchers are also exploring applications involving conditions including blindness, addiction and other brain disorders, although optogenetics remains primarily a research technology rather than a routine medical treatment.
The award builds on more than a century of Nobel-recognized research into the nervous system. In 1906, Camillo Golgi and Santiago Ramón y Cajal shared the medicine prize for their work on the structure of the nervous system. Later Nobel-winning discoveries helped explain how nerve impulses travel and how individual brain cells communicate.
The 2026 laureates will share a prize of 12 million Swedish kronor, about US$1.2 million. The medicine award is the first Nobel prize announced during this year’s Nobel week, with prizes in physics, chemistry, literature and other fields to follow.
The Nobel Assembly said optogenetics has fundamentally changed the study of the brain by allowing scientists not only to observe neural activity but also to manipulate it with precise timing. The approach is providing researchers with a new window into one of science’s oldest and most complex questions: how the brain produces the functions that define human behavior and experience.
Paraluman P. Funtanilla
Paraluman P. Funtanilla is Tutubi News Magazine's Marketing Specialist and is a Contributing Editor. She finished her degree in Communication Arts in De La Salle Lipa. She has worked as a Digital Marketer for start-up businesses and small business spaces for the past two years. She has earned certificates from Coursera on Brand Management: Aligning Business Brand and Behavior and Viral Marketing and How to Craft Contagious Content. She also worked with Asia Express Romania TV Show.
- Paraluman P. Funtanilla
- Paraluman P. Funtanilla
- Paraluman P. Funtanilla
- Paraluman P. Funtanilla
