The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Karl Deisseroth of the US and Germany's Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel for their work on light-gated ion channels and optogenetics. The announcement was made at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm on Monday, marking the first Nobel Prize announcement of the 2026 Nobel week. The research recognised this year has transformed how scientists can study nerve cells by using light to control their activity.
Optogenetics "makes it possible to switch on, or off, the activity of individual nerve cells in a living brain," the prize-givers said.
