Nobel Prize in medicine awarded to three scientists for their work ‘concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics’
- Dr. Karl Deisseroth, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, won the Nobel Prize for medicine early Monday for his work developing optogenetics, a field combining light and genes to control neurons in living brains.
- Deisseroth shared the prize with researchers Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel in Germany for their collaborative development of optogenetics, a breakthrough that switches neurons on and off using light and genetic techniques.
- After receiving the call from the Nobel Assembly in Stockholm, Deisseroth celebrated at his Stanford home while his wife, Dr. Michelle Monje-Deisseroth, joined him as Stanford University staff coordinated remote interviews throughout the night.
- When media attention intensified, Deisseroth paused the interviews to request a break starting at 6:30 a.m. because his children needed school lunches before leaving for the day.
- Deisseroth emphasized his dual identity, saying "For me, I'm a physician-scientist. I care about patients and my patients who have autism, who have depression." He added he cares about understanding how the brain works.
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Nobel Prize awarded for groundbreaking research on brain cells study
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to scientists who developed a new technique to study brain cells. American Karl Deisseroth and Germans Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel developed optogenetics, which uses light to control individual nerve cells in the brain.The Nobel Assembly of Sweden's Karolinska Institutet said Mr Deisseroth, 54; Mr Hegemann, 71; and Mr Nagel, 73, had been selected for their "discoveries concerning ligh…
Three Scientists Win Nobel Medicine Prize For Brain Research
Three scientists have won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries that transformed how researchers can study the brain. Karl Deisseroth of Stanford University, Peter Hegemann of Humboldt University and Georg Nagel of the University of Würzburg were honoured. They were honoured for their work on “light-gated ion channels and optogenetics”. But… Continue reading Three Scientists Win Nobel Medicine Prize For Brain Research
The week of Nobel Prize winners 2026 is scheduled from 5 to 12 October, the institutions in charge will announce the winners of the 2026 edition of the different categories, with a break in the end...
After it was announced that he had won the Nobel Prize in Medicine, Dr. Carl Deisseroth spent the first few hours talking on the phone and receiving congratulations. But he soon had to take a break for a much more mundane task: preparing school lunches for his children who were sleeping at home in Stanford while their father spoke to reporters and well-wishers into the night.
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