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Switching on brain cells: The Nobel-winning science of optogenetics
Confirmed
In Short: The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, and Georg Nagel for their work on optogenetics.
The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, and Georg Nagel for their groundbreaking work on optogenetics, a technique that allows researchers to control nerve cells using light.
Optogenetics, a revolutionary method in neuroscience, enables scientists to precisely activate or silence specific nerve cells in living animals, illuminating the direct connections between brain cells and behaviors, emotions, and memories.
According to the Nobel Assembly, the trio's discoveries made it possible to use light to control and study specific nerve cells, revealing how they shape memories, emotions, and behaviors in a living brain.
Deisseroth, based at Stanford University, Hegemann at Humboldt University in Berlin, and Nagel at the University of Würzburg in Germany, were recognized for their contributions to the development of light-gated ion channels and optogenetics.
Their work began with the discovery of light-sensitive proteins in algae, which were then introduced into other cells, making them light-sensitive as well.
In 2005, Deisseroth published a breakthrough that introduced the gene for channelrhodopsin into rat nerve cells, and two years later, he made the technique work in the brains of living mice.
Optogenetics has since been used worldwide to study neurological and psychiatric disorders, such as depression, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer’s disease.
The Nobel committee lauded the method's ability to establish cause and effect in brain function, noting that it is now being used in laboratories around the world to reveal the brain's mysteries.
By genetically modifying targeted neurons to have light-sensitive proteins, researchers can investigate the specific functions of these cells in live animals.
The technique has also allowed for the development of compact light sources and flexible fiber optics, enabling the system to act in the brains of animals that are free to move about and behave normally.
Optogenetics has provided a fine level of control over nerve cells, allowing them to send impulses only under specific circumstances, which is crucial for understanding the brain's complex interplay of perception, memory, prediction, and decision-making.
Abdel El Manira, a member of the Nobel Prize committee and a neuroscientist at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, highlighted the significance of the technique in answering fundamental questions about brain function.
What this adds
The Nobel Prize in medicine was awarded on Monday, with the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences set to be announced on Oct. 12.
What's confirmed
- Karl Deisseroth, 54, Peter Hegemann, 71, and Georg Nagel, 73, have carried out research into light-gated ion channels and optogenetics.
What's still developing
- The pair inserted a gene for channelrhodopsin into embryonic human kidney cells and hamster kidney cells, giving the other species’ cells this unique property.
- After Friday's peace prize is awarded, the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences will be announced on Oct. 12.
- A version that allows negatively charged chlorine ions into the cell was also discovered, allowing researchers to selectively shut down nerve cells.
- The entire field of optogenetics traces back to light-seeking algae.
- Over decades of research, scientists have built up a partial picture of what specialized cells within the brain and spinal cord do.
- By studying how the brain develops, they could identify genes that were active in different populations of neurons and where in the brain those neurons resided.
- In some cases, these genes could then be used to genetically delete the neurons, allowing us to get some indication of what they might be doing, building on the information we’ve obtained from studies of brains with damaged regions.
- It would be far more informative to activate and shut down the neurons in an otherwise intact brain.
- Starting from studies of single-celled algae that are attracted to light, these and many other researchers built an entire field of study that we now call optogenetics: using light to alter the behavior of nerve cells marked by the activity of individual genes.
- It was in the 20 th century, that researchers began to map areas of the brain to related functions, but the methods they used could not prove causal relationships.
- Now all this is changing, thanks to revolutionary techniques including optogenetics.
- How the brain functions and pulls the strings to guide feelings, behaviour and bodily functions has long been a mystery.