American Karl Deisseroth and Germans Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel will share 12 million Swedish crowns ($1.2 million) after winning the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries behind optogenetics. The prize recognizes work that lets researchers switch individual nerve cells on or off using light. They’ve opened a new way to study the brain.
A method built across laboratories
The Nobel Assembly of Sweden’s Karolinska Institute selected the three scientists for their “discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics.” Thomas Perlmann, Secretary-General of the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet, said the method “is now being used in laboratories around the world to reveal the brain’s mysteries.” It’s a tool researchers use widely.
The research grew through work across several laboratories. In the early 1990s, Hegemann investigated how the alga Chlamydomonas reacts to light in half a millisecond. He proposed that one protein captured light and acted as an ion channel. Nagel tested the idea by injecting Chlamydomonas genes into frog eggs, where he discovered channelrhodopsin-2, an ion channel that opens when exposed to light.
Hegemann and Nagel published findings showing that the protein could be introduced into human and hamster cells to generate electrical impulses using light. Deisseroth demonstrated the technique in rat nerve cells at Stanford. Researchers later named the method optogenetics.
Deisseroth is 54, Hegemann is 71 and Nagel is 73. Perlmann said he spoke with all three laureates on Monday morning. They were “surprised and delighted,” he said, adding that all three welcomed receiving the prize alongside the others and called them friends. They’re friends, too.
Clinical uses remain under study
Researchers are seeking to restore vision to people blinded by retinitis pigmentosa in clinical trials, inserting a light-sensitive protein into the retina. The trials apply the research to a condition that causes blindness, but they haven’t shown that the approach restores vision. The results remain under study.
Researchers also hope optogenetics could improve cochlea implants. Their goal is more precise stimulation of the auditory nerve than current electrical devices provide. That use remains a possibility researchers hope to develop, not an established treatment. It isn’t in use as a treatment.
The prize money is shared among the three scientists. The article identifies the amount awarded but gives no breakdown of how the sum will be divided among them or any financial details about clinical applications of the research. There’s no division listed.
The institutions behind the award
Expert committees appointed by the prize-awarding institutions choose Nobel laureates. The physiology or medicine prize traditionally opens the annual Nobel announcements, followed by awards in physics, chemistry, literature, peace and economics. The ceremonies culminate on Dec. 10, when laureates receive their awards in Stockholm, except for the Peace Prize, which is handed out in Oslo. Sweden’s and Norway’s royal families attend the ceremonies and gala banquets.
Alfred Nobel, a Swedish inventor and industrialist, created the five original prizes under the terms of his will. They’ve been awarded since 1901, with limited interruptions, chiefly during World War One and World War Two. Sweden’s central bank, the Riksbank, established the economics prize in 1968.
The medicine prize has recognized discoveries including Alexander Fleming’s work on penicillin, recognized in 1945, and Karl Landsteiner’s discovery of human blood groups, for which he won in 1930. The previous year’s prize went to American scientists Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell and Japan’s Shimon Sakaguchi for work on how the immune system spares healthy cells, opening possible paths to treatments for diseases such as cancer.