Scientists who can ‘control brain cells using light’ win 2026 Nobel Prize in medicine

Three scientists have won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for research that has helped explain how individual nerve cells in the brain can be switched on and off.

The Nobel Assembly on Monday named Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel as this year’s recipients for their work on light-gated ion channels and optogenetics.

Deisseroth, 54, works at Stanford University in California, while Hegemann, 71, is based at Humboldt University in Berlin and Nagel, 73, is a researcher at the University of Würzburg in Germany.

Their work led to the development of a technique that allows scientists to control nerve cells using light. The Nobel Assembly said the method is now being used by researchers around the world to study the brain and its functions.

The research began with Hegemann’s efforts to understand how a type of single-celled green algae moves towards light. He and Nagel identified a protein that responds to blue light by opening a channel and producing an electrical signal.

Scientists later found that placing the protein in other cells could make those cells respond to light.

Deisseroth built on the discovery by using the gene responsible for the protein to develop a light-controlled system for activating or shutting down nerve cells in the brains of living mice.

The technique, known as optogenetics, has opened new avenues for studying how brain circuits work and how they are linked to behaviour and disease.

Deisseroth said he was working late at his home in Northern California when he received the call informing him that he had won the prize.

The neuroscientist, who described himself as a night owl, said that he had been preparing papers and emailing students before going to bed. “No real sleep was achieved,” he said.

His immediate priority after receiving the news was more domestic. He said he needed to prepare school lunches for his children, who were still asleep.

Thomas Perlmann, secretary of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine, said he managed to contact all three winners on Monday.

The prize was announced at Stockholm’s Karolinska Institute, marking the start of this year’s Nobel Prize announcements. The winners will share prize money of 12 million Swedish kronor, worth about $1.2 million.

Last year’s medicine prize was awarded to three scientists for research into the immune system.

The Nobel Prize in Physics will be announced on Tuesday, followed by Chemistry on Wednesday and Literature on Thursday.