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Optogenetics and the 2026 Nobel Prize in Medicine

by Alice

How Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel's discovery of light-gated ion channels became optogenetics, the tool neuroscientists use to switch individual neurons on and off with light. For anyone curious about the science behind October 2026's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

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In October 2026, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine went to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel for discovering light-gated ion channels and turning them into optogenetics, a tool for controlling nerve cells with light. The channel at the heart of it, channelrhodopsin, exists naturally in green algae, where it lets the algae sense light and swim toward it. Hegemann and Nagel identified the channel in the 1990s; Deisseroth later found a way to put its gene into mammalian neurons, so that shining blue light on those neurons would make them fire.

Which property of channelrhodopsin, evolved for a completely different purpose in algae, is what makes it useful for controlling neurons?

multiple choice

AIt is resistant to extreme temperatures, so it survives being inserted into warm-blooded animals
BIt fluoresces under a microscope, so individual channels can be seen directly
CIt opens in response to light and lets charged particles cross the cell membrane, changing the cell's electrical state
DIt pumps its light-sensing molecule out of the cell once activated, resetting the channel instantly
A neuron fires because of a change in its electrical charge, not because of anything to do with temperature or color.
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