Nobel Prize 2026: Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, Georg Nagel win medicine award

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been jointly awarded to three scientists, Karl Deisseroth, 54, Peter Hegemann, 71, and Georg Nagel, 73, for their research on light-gated ion channels and optogenetics. Their work has allowed researchers to switch individual nerve cells on or off in living brains, providing insights into how neural circuits influence memory, emotions, and behaviour.

The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet lauded their work and wrote on X that the method "is now being used in laboratories around the world to reveal the brain's mysteries".

Thomas Perlmann, the secretary of the medicine committee, reached out to all three winners. The assembly added that Deisseroth is based at Stanford University in California, while Hegemann is at Humboldt University in Berlin and Nagel at the University of Würzburg, also in Germany.

Notably, since 1901, a total of 117 Nobel Prizes in physiology or medicine have been awarded.

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Optogenetics: New era in neuroscience

Optogenetics opened what the Nobel assembly called a 'new era in neuroscience'. The discovery of a light-controlled switch that turns nerve cells and circuits in the brain on and off, helping us learn how they work and start unravelling the pathways that lead to behaviour and disease.

It all started when Hegemann explored how a single-celled type of green algae can swim toward light. He and Nagel discovered a particular protein that, when illuminated by blue light, opens a channel to create an electrical impulse. Putting that protein into other cells makes them light-sensitive.

Deisseroth then worked with the gene that controls that protein to create a light-controlled switch for nerve cells in the brains of living mice. Deisseroth, a self-described night owl, said he was up late in his Northern California home working on papers and emailing his students. He had just gone to lie down when he got the call from the Nobel assembly.

"No real sleep was achieved," he told The Associated Press in a phone call an hour after the announcement. He said the next task on his to-do list was to pack school lunches for his children, who were still sound asleep. "That's my one obligation I have in the next few hours, to make sure I make their sandwiches," he said.

Nobel Prize 2026

The prize was announced at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, kicking off Nobel's week. The prize money this year is 12 million Swedish kronor (about USD 1.2 million). Last year, the prize went to three scientists researching the immune system. The Medicine Prize is followed by the Physics Prize, then Chemistry, and later, the Literature Prize

After Friday's peace prize is awarded, the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences will be announced on Oct 12. The prize money this year is 12 million Swedish kronor (about USD 1.2 million), whether for an individual, a small group of laureates, or an organisation. With input from PTI