Brief by Shorts91 Newsdesk / 10:02am on 05 Oct 2026,Monday Science
The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel for discoveries that enabled scientists to control cells using light. Their work on light-gated ion channels helped establish optogenetics, a technique now widely used in neuroscience. Hegemann and Nagel discovered channelrhodopsin, a protein that makes cells respond to light. Deisseroth later introduced the protein into nerve cells and showed that blue light could trigger nerve signals. He also demonstrated that the technique could control nerve activity in living mice. The laureates will share a prize of 12 million Swedish crowns. (PC: HT)
