The Nobel Assembly awarded the 2026 medicine prize to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel for light-gated ion channels and optogenetics.
The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Monday to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel for discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics.
Deisseroth is at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Stanford University. Hegemann is at Humboldt University of Berlin and Nagel at the University of Wurzburg. The assembly said the three will share 12 million Swedish kronor equally.
Hegemann and Nagel identified channelrhodopsin, a light-sensitive protein in a single-celled alga. Deisseroth later turned that protein into a light-controlled switch for nerve cells, so researchers can turn individual neurons on or off in a living brain.
Secretary-General Thomas Perlmann said the method makes it possible to switch the activity of individual nerve cells. Reuters reported the laureates as Deisseroth, 54, Hegemann, 71, and Nagel, 73.
Physics, chemistry, literature, peace and economics prizes are due later in the week. The Nobel Peace Prize is scheduled to be announced on Friday.