Karl Deisseroth

Optogenetics won the medicine prize.

Specifically, they recognized Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, and Gero Nagel for discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics.

Those are the three with their artwork.

Um, this is a technology that allows neuroscientists to turn on and off specific neurons in the brain using light, and this allows scientists to establish causal links between stimuli, neur- neural firing, like the activity of neurons in the brain, and behavior of the animal at large.

[ding] Fact number five.

The 2026 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine went to Karl Deisseroth from the United States, as well as two German scientists, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel.

This prize was for something called optogenetics, which is a tool that's used to study how the brain works.

The opto part means light, and the genetic part is about DNA.

The technique involves using light to turn cells on or off and observing what happens.

Optogenetics has become a really important tool in neuroscience, and it is a good example of how long it can take for a new idea to work.

Karl Deisseroth was working on optogenetics for at least 20 years before he won the Nobel Prize for his work, and he has said that the work of lots of scientists before him was really important and that his work was built on the work of others.

This is often how scientific discoveries are made.

Together, Hall and Woodford helped build a more detailed understanding of how individual economic decisions and expectations drive economy-wide fluctuations, giving policymakers better tools to study inflation, recessions, and monetary policy.

The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to three men, Karl Deisseroth of Stanford, Peter Hegemann of Humboldt University of Berlin, and Georg Nagel of the University of Würzburg, Germany.

The Nobel Committee recognized them, quote, for their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics, end quote.

So what exactly does that mean? For centuries, scientists have struggled with a fundamental problem in neuroscience.

Because moving ions creates electrical charges, these proteins can act as light-controlled switches.

Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel helped discover and characterize these light-sensitive proteins, demonstrating how they could control electrical activity.

Karl Deisseroth and his collaborators subsequently developed techniques for inserting genes that produce these proteins in mammal neurons.

And the result was revolutionary.

It's been a good Nobel season for Stanford.

Last week, Professor Karl Deisseroth shared the medicine prize for work that uses light to stimulate nerve cells in the brain.

Giving police a false tip is never a good idea, but AI did it anyway.

Anthropic admits that over the summer, one of its earlier models sent the Philadelphia PD an untrue clue about an unsolved crime, but nobody at the company noticed the blunder until September and didn't reach out to police until last week.

Speaking of looking carefully, today's Nobel started with an alga that swims toward the light.

The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has gone to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, and Georg Nagel.

The citation is their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics.

Announced on 5th October.

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This week, Dr. Karl Deisseroth, I do not know if I'm saying that correctly- [laughs] ... uh, received the Nobel Prize in Science and Medicine.

I could not begin to describe to you why he received that prize.

[laughs] That's so beyond, uh, my expertise.