Punjab, Oct. 5 -- The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine went to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel for discoveries on light-gated ion channels and optogenetics - a technique that switches individual nerve cells on and off with light.
What they actually did
Hegemann and Nagel found channelrhodopsin, a light-sensitive ion channel in a cell membrane that opens almost instantly when light hits it. It exists in algae, which use it to swim toward light.
Deisseroth then put the gene for that protein into rat nerve cells. The result was a neuron that fires when you shine blue light on it.
That is optogenetics: a switch, installed genetically, operated with light, acting on one cell type at a time.
Why this is a bigger dea...