The 2026 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine has been awarded for optogenetics, a method that helps showcase how nerve cells shape memories, feelings, and behaviours in the living brain. This prize is jointly awarded t…

The 2026 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine has been awarded for optogenetics, a method that helps showcase how nerve cells shape memories, feelings, and behaviours in the living brain. This prize is jointly awarded to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, and Georg Nagel for their discoveries of light-gated ion channels and their role in optogenetics. The discovery laid the foundation of a new era in neuroscience. “Optogenetics provides opportunities for mapping the brain in a way that we could once only dream of,” Per Svenningsson, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine, said in a press release.The Nobel assembly at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, announced the winners on Monday. They will each receive an equal share of a prize of 12m Swedish kronor (about £900,000). The year’s award is the 117th time the prize has been given. Of the total 235 laureates, only 14 winners have been women, according to The Guardian.BREAKING NEWS
The 2026 #NobelPrize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel “for their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics.” https://t.co/pkDDEBWtkz— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 5, 2026
How does the breakthrough work?Hegemann and Nagel discovered a remarkable protein, channelrhodopsin, in a single-celled alga. It began with Hegemann’s curiosity. He wondered how it is able to swim towards a light source. In the early 2000s, he and Nagel discovered that when it is illuminated by blue light, a channel opens through the protein. Charged ions then flow into the cell, creating an electrical impulse. They found that regardless of which cell they put the protein in, those cells became light sensitive. Meanwhile, Deisseroth took the discovery one step further. He introduced the gene responsible for channelrhodopsin into nerve cells taken from rats. When blue light was directed at these cells, it triggered nerve signals.  Two years later, he made this light-controlled switch for nerve cells work in the brains of living mice. A new way to study brainThis method for controlling nerve signals with light is now called optogenetics, and it has rapidly gained global impact. It has fundamentally altered our understanding of the brain. Using optogenetics, researchers have been able to reveal neural circuits governing specific memories, feelings, and behaviours relevant to neurological and psychiatric disorders. In clinical medicine, researchers are using the method in attempts to restore sight in people with visual impairment.

Source: Deccan Herald