Neuroscientists Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel have won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their research into light-gated ion channels and optogenetics – a method that “provides opportunities for mapping the brain in a way that we could once only dream of”, reports Euronews.
Optogenetics makes it possible to show how nerve cells shape memories, feelings and behaviours in the living brain, the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet said last week, and in winning the prize, German scientists Nagel and Hegemann and US scientist Deisseroth have “laid the foundation of a new era in neuroscience”, the institute said.
Per Svenningsson, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine, said optogenetics was now being used in laboratories around the world to reveal the brain’s mysteries.
Last year's prize was shared by two US scientists, Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell, and their Japanese peer Shimon Sakaguchi, for their discoveries in peripheral immune tolerance.
The three were awarded for “their ground-breaking discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance that prevents the immune system from harming the body”, with experts calling the findings critical to understanding autoimmune diseases like Type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus.
The honour has been awarded 117 times to 235 laureates between 1901 and 2026.
The award ceremony will be held on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the wealthy Swedish industrialist and inventor of dynamite who founded the prizes. He died in 1896.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
US, Japan scientists win Nobel prize for immune system breakthrough
Nobel winners speak out against Trump’s conspiracy-theorist health boss