Prof. Georg Nagel is celebrating the biggest day of his career in Italy. The 73-year-old was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine on Monday together with his Berlin colleague Peter Hegemann, 71, and the US researcher Karl Deisseroth, 54. Nagel is currently in Naples. His wife comes from there and they have owned a small apartment there for eleven years.
Since the professor at the University of Würzburg retired, he has always been in Naples in the winter. He usually doesn't go until the end of October, but since his daughter celebrated her 30th birthday there at the end of September, he's already in Naples. Nagel said with a laugh in an interview with “Bild”: “The daughter’s 30th birthday? That’s more important than a Nobel Prize.” How did she react to her father's win? “Thank God the call didn’t come until after my party, otherwise you would have stolen the show,” Nagel quoted his daughter as saying.
Nagel found out about the award over the phone. A former student told him that he had received a call from Stockholm in his office in Würzburg: “They wanted my number, so I was somewhat forewarned,” says Nagel. The man from Würzburg called Stockholm.
“First the gentleman on the phone asked if I was Mr. Hegemann,” the 73-year-old chats and says with a laugh: “I was a little pissed off.” Nagel got the number from Thomas Perlmann, a member of the Nobel Committee: "I then called there myself and he explained it to me. So I was basically calling after my own Nobel Prize," he says and laughs.
The news also spread quickly at the Julius Maximilians University in Würzburg. University President Prof. Paul Pauli, 66, said he had already heard that Nagel was being considered for the Nobel Prize. Nagel himself did not expect that he would receive the award this year.
But his colleagues would always warn him when the Nobel Prize phase was about to begin: "I always say: Relax, I'm not there anyway. That's why I was really surprised that the call came." His wife, whom he met in New York, was more optimistic than Nagel. She “always knew” that one day he would be awarded the Nobel Prize, he says. With his research, Nagel laid the foundation for optogenetics.
With this research, Georg Nagel won the Nobel Prize
Prof. Nagel and the German researcher Peter Hegemann discovered a special protein called channelrhodopsin in a tiny green alga. This protein works like a tiny light switch: when blue light hits it, a channel in the cell envelope opens and the cell is electrically activated. The US researcher Karl Deisseroth then had the decisive idea: he incorporated the blueprint of this protein into nerve cells. Suddenly these cells also became sensitive to light. If you shined a blue light on them, they fired a signal.
Today, researchers can use it to specifically switch individual nerve cells on or off and investigate what role they play in, for example, memories, feelings and behavior. For these groundbreaking discoveries, Nagel, Hegemann and Deisseroth will now receive the 2026 Nobel Prize in Medicine.
Georg Nagel's path into science began unusually. As a child he was seriously ill and had to undergo repeated operations at the Würzburg University Hospital. "I was always interested in sports, but at school I was always exempt from physical education lessons. Nonsense, but that's how it was," says Nagel. Because he often had to stay at home because of his illness, Nagel worked on an experiment kit. “During that time I started living and exploring,” says the 73-year-old.
At school he was enthusiastic about mathematics, physics and biology. “I was very lucky, my path wasn’t straight,” said Nagel. He studied biology at the University of Konstanz and came into contact with biophysics there. His first teacher in this field was Ernst Bamberg. Nagel worked in his laboratory, later went to the USA for his research and returned to Germany in 1992. Since 2004 he has been professor of molecular plant physiology and biophysics at the University of Würzburg.
He even had his own café with friends: "Café Chaos. I don't usually mention that on my CV. With twelve people, the personal consumption was very high, and at some point we gave it up," he says with a laugh.
He takes his wife and daughter with him to the award ceremony
Now he is at the peak of his career. How is he celebrating this special day today? “Just like at our wedding: with a pizza and maybe a beer,” he says and reveals: “Markus Söder wanted to have me come to Munich this evening, but I preferred to stay in Italy with my family.”
Nagel has no further plans for the coming weeks and does not yet have any plans for his share of the prize money (one million euros for the three researchers). The news is too fresh for that, says Nagel. The only thing he has now is an appointment on December 10th. The ceremonial presentation of the Nobel Prizes takes place in Stockholm. "I don't know anything else yet. I have to get myself a tailcoat first." But one thing is certain: “I’m taking my wife and daughter with me.”
Although neither he nor she is the type for the cold Scandinavian winter: "Stockholm in December is special. I tend to travel in the warm, more in Italy - my wife especially," he says with a laugh. But the 73-year-old is happy to make an exception in order to accept his Nobel Prize.
