The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was announced on October 5, awarded to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, and Georg Nagel for their work on light-controlled ion channels and optogenetics. The prize of 12 million Swedish Krona will be shared among the three. Stanford subsequently released footage of Deisseroth in his campus lab.

Deisseroth, 54, is the D.H. Chen Professor in the Departments of Bioengineering and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, and a researcher at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, holding both an M.D. and a Ph.D. in neuroscience. In the footage, he is seen walking through a corridor with a backpack, opening the lab door, without champagne or media crowds.

The award divides the discovery into two parts. Hegemann and Nagel found light-sensitive protein channels called channelrhodopsins in single-celled algae. Deisseroth developed these proteins into light switches for neurons: in 2005, he triggered neural signals in cultured rat neurons using blue light, and about two years later achieved this in the brains of live mice. The Karolinska Institute stated that light can turn on or off individual neurons in a living brain within milliseconds.

He established a training program at Stanford, distributing modified rhodopsin genes to laboratories worldwide, claiming to have trained thousands of users. As a psychiatrist, he emphasizes indirect applications: first identifying cells corresponding to symptoms, then designing drugs based on these circuits. Optogenetics has been adapted to restore limited light perception in a few blind individuals and is being tested for epilepsy, pain, and other conditions.

Stanford President Jonathan Levin stated that this work opens new possibilities for understanding the brain and treating neurological and psychiatric disorders. Deisseroth himself noted that the trio covers the entire path from algae exploration to neuroscience experimentation. Science pointed out that MIT's Edward Boyden, the first author of the key 2005 paper, who continued to advance the field, is not on the award list this time.

The buyers are laboratories that bring algal proteins into mammalian neural experiments, while the sellers are Stanford's research group providing genetic tools and training. The event was driven by the award announcement, not by new clinical approvals. Funding and attention will flow towards optogenetic circuit localization, then towards drugs and gene therapy trials designed based on these circuits. Beneficiaries are neuroscience laboratories that have mastered the tools, while traditional methods relying on broad electrical stimulation or resection to infer function are under pressure, along with parallel contributors not included in the award list.

The award was issued on October 5, with lab footage released afterward. The 12 million Krona is a share of honor, not an experimental budget.

Source: Public Information