Nobel medicine prize honours US and German scientists for optogenetics work

American scientist Karl Deisseroth and Germans Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel have won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their pioneering discoveries on light and optogenetics that have helped understand ⁠how the brain works. The Nobel Assembly of Sweden’s Karolinska Institute medical university said on Monday that Deisseroth, 54, Hegemann, 71, and Nagel, 73, were honoured “for their discovery of a molecular switch for nerve cells”. Optogenetics involves controlling nerve signals with light, and helps researchers understand how specific cell types contribute to behaviours like learning, fear, addiction and movement. “Optogenetics has fundamentally altered our understanding of the brain.