Nobel prize for medicine goes to trio who developed optogenetics
· New Scientist
The 2026 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine has been awarded to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel for the development of techniques for controlling nerve cells with light, known as optogenetics.
“It’s a tremendous step forward to be able to link nerve cells and their function to specific behaviours,” said Anna Wedell, a member of the Nobel committee. “It’s a completely new dimension of understanding of the function of the brain.”
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In the 1990s, Peter Hegemann, then at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Germany, wondered how a single-celled alga, called Chlamydomonas, can swim towards light. He discovered the key to this is a light-sensitive protein.
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if( window?.adverts?.addToArray ) { window.adverts.addToArray( { "pos": "mid-article-slot" } ); }In the 2000s, Hegemann teamed up with Georg Nagel, then at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysics in Frankfurt, Germany. They showed that this light-sensitive protein acts as a switch, opening a channel that lets ions flow through the protein when exposed to light. They called the protein channel-rhodopsin.
“They had just discovered the switch neuroscientists had long dreamed of,” Abdel El Manira, a neuroscientist and a member of the Nobel Committee, said during the prize announcement.
Sign up to Health Check Sign up to newsletterThe discovery of channel-rhodopsin was a major breakthrough in itself, said El Manira, but Karl Deisseroth, at Stanford University, took things even further by showing that this protein could be used to control nerve cells.
Deisseroth genetically engineered rats to produce channel-rhodopsin in their nerve cells, meaning these cells could be activated by shining light on them. This work, published in 2005, enabled researchers to study the function of specific groups of neurons.
“For the first time, causal links between specific brain circuits and behaviour had been achieved,” El Manira said. “The technology transformed neuroscience. Optogenetics was rapidly and widely adopted all over the world.”
More light-sensitive proteins have since been discovered, which respond to different colours, enabling even more precise control of engineered nerve cells.
Resuscitated retinas respond to light 10 hours after deathPerfusing donor retinas with blood and oxygen meant they continued to respond to light for up to 10 hours after death, marking a significant step towards eye transplants that restore vision
Therapies based on optogenetics are also being developed. For instance, it is being explored as a way to restore some sight to people who are blind because they have lost the light-detecting rod and cone cells in the retina. Optogenetic techniques can be used to make nerve cells in the retina respond directly to light instead, but this does require wearing special goggles.
There are several clinical trials ongoing with this approach, said Per Svenningsson, chair of the Nobel Committee.
The downside of optogenetics is that light cannot penetrate far into the body. So several groups around the world are trying to develop equivalent methods based on ultrasound or magnetism.