The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded for discoveries that let scientists switch individual nerve cells on or off with light.
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 Würzburg. The assembly said the prize recognizes work that made it possible to control individual nerve cells in a living brain with light.
Hegemann and Nagel identified channelrhodopsin, a light-sensitive protein from a single-celled alga. Deisseroth later turned that protein into a tool for switching nerve cells on or off. The laureates will share 12 million Swedish kronor.
Reuters reported the method lets researchers switch the activity of individual nerve cells in a living brain, quoting Nobel Assembly secretary-general Thomas Perlmann. Further 2026 Nobel announcements are scheduled through the week, with the peace prize due on Friday.
The award is a basic-science prize rather than a new therapy approval. Researchers already use optogenetics in animal models of conditions including epilepsy and addiction, but the Nobel citation is for the discovery and the method, not a clinical product.