2026 Nobel Prize in Biomedicine Announced: Deisseros, Hegermann and Nagel jointly won the award, ushering in a new era of "optogenetics"

The Nobel Prize officially announced the three winners of this year's Physiology or Medicine Prize. From left to right, they are Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel. They were commended for discovering light-sensitive ion channels from green algae and pioneering "optogenetics", achieving a revolutionary breakthrough in using light to accurately switch nerve cells in the living brain. (Extracted from the official Facebook page of the Nobel Prize/Illustrated by Niklas Elmehed)

The humble green algae in the pond has turned out to be the key to unlocking the mysteries of the human brain! The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was officially announced on the 5th. The award is shared by three scientists: Karl Deisseroth, a professor at Stanford University in the United States, Peter Hegemann, a professor at Humboldt University in Berlin, and Georg Nagel, a professor at the University of Würzburg in Germany. The Nobel Assembly summed up this great breakthrough with a very poetic eulogy: "Phototactic green algae have given us a switch to control nerve cells."

The Nobel Assembly of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden pointed out that understanding how the brain forms memory, emotions and behavior has always been the ultimate dream of the scientific community. This year's three winners were awarded for "for discoveries leading to optogenetics." This epoch-making technology allows researchers for the first time to "turn on" or "turn off" the activity of a single nerve cell at will in the living brain. It has been widely used by the world's top laboratories to explore the deepest mysteries of the brain.

The source of this revolutionary technology actually comes from tiny green algae. Hagermann and Nagel discovered that the reason why green algae have the characteristic of phototactic swimming is because their bodies contain a channel protein that is extremely sensitive to light. Deisseros then cleverly introduced this photosensitive mechanism into the mammalian nervous system and successfully created "Optogenetics".

A beam of light acts as a switch to decode memories in the living brain

In the past, when scientists tried to study brain circuits, they could only use crude electrode stimulation or chemical drugs, but these methods were often like throwing rocks into water, affecting countless healthy neurons around them. Now, as long as photosensitive switches are installed into specific nerve cells through genetic technology, and then illuminated with extremely thin micro-fibers, they can precisely control the excitation or inhibition of specific circuits in milliseconds.

The eulogy pointed out that this method has completely illuminated the dark labyrinth of the brain, not only allowing scientists to clarify the neural circuits of fear, anxiety, addiction and motivation, but also providing new therapeutic targets for difficult-to-treat neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, and severe depression. It has even been tried to repair damaged retinas and help blind people regain sight.

The 2026 Nobel Prize will kick off on the 5th. Following the announcement of the Physiology or Medicine Prize on the first day, the Physics Prize will be announced on the 6th, the Chemistry Prize will be announced on the 7th, the Literature Prize will be announced on the 8th, the Peace Prize will be announced on the 9th, and the Economics Prize is scheduled to be announced on the 12th.