Stanford University professor Karl Deisseroth was asleep for only a few minutes when the Nobel committee’s call came at 12:27 a.m. Pacific time on October 5, He had won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on optogenetics, which is a technique that allows scientists to control individual nerve cells with light. He initially missed the call, but seconds later, his wife, Stanford neuro-oncologist Michelle Monje-Deisseroth, answered her phone and was asked to put Karl on.
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