2026 Nobel medicine prize: Trio wins for optogenetics work

The Nobel Prize for Physiology for 2026 was awarded to scientists Karl ​Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel for “discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics,” the award-giving ​body said on Monday (October 5, 2026).

Karl Deisseroth, a 54-year-old American, Hegemann, a 71-year-old ⁠German, and Georg Nagel, a 73-year-old German, were selected by the Nobel Assembly of Sweden’s Karolinska Institute medical university and receive a prize sum amounting to ‌12 million Swedish crowns ($1.2 million), which is shared if there are multiple winners.

Optogenetics “makes it possible to switch on, or off, ‌the activity of individual nerve cells in a living brain,” ‌the prize-givers ⁠said.

“This method is now being used in laboratories around ⁠the world to reveal the brain’s mysteries.”

Last year, US scientists Mary E. Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell, and Japanese scientist Shimon Sakaguchi won the prize for their discovery of regulatory T cells. Their discovery has helped blaze new paths into treating cancer as well as auto-immune disease – a condition by which the immune system ends up harming healthy cells they are meant to protect.

The announcement of medicine Nobel kicks off the Nobel announcement week with physics being announced on October 6, followed by chemistry, literature, and peace. The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences, popularly known as Economics Nobel will be announced on October 12.

The winners will get a cash award of 10 million Swedish kronor (nearly $900,000) and the award will be presented on December 10, the Nobel Prize day.

The Nobel Prize was created by Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, who in his will dictated that his estate should be used to fund “prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind”. December 10 is Nobel’s death anniversary.

(With inputs from Reuters)