American Karl Deisseroth and Germans Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel have won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Medicine for developing optogenetics. The technique uses light to control individual nerve cells in the brain.
The Nobel Assembly of Sweden's Karolinska Institute announced the award on Monday. It recognised the trio's discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics. Deisseroth, 54, Hegemann, 71, and Nagel, 73, will share a prize of 12 million Swedish crowns.
According to Thomas Perlmann, secretary-general of the Nobel Assembly, the method can switch individual nerve cells in a living brain on or off. Laboratories worldwide now use it to study how the brain works, he said.