Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel won this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for optogenetics, the work that helped scientists better understand the brain. The Nobel Prize in neuroscience was announced at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, and the committee said researchers are now taking the first steps toward using the method as a medical treatment.
Karolinska Institute in Sweden
The Nobel Committee said the trio will share £900,000, or 12 million Swedish kronor. Deisseroth said it was “absolutely wonderful” to get the award. The committee also said optogenetics has opened a new era in neuroscience and is already being used in attempts to restore sight in people with visual impairment.
Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel
In the early 2000s, Hegemann and Nagel discovered channelrhodopsin, a special protein borrowed from algae that can control cell electrical activity using light. Deisseroth later worked out how to use that light-controlled protein to switch on nerve cells in the brains of mice. The Nobel Committee said that work now lets researchers switch individual neural circuits on or off in the brain using light.
The Nobel Committee
The Nobel Committee said the method can bring memories to life, create feelings, drive behaviours and study the types of neurons involved in neurological and psychiatric disorders. Per Svenningsson said optogenetics offers “opportunities for mapping the brain in a way that we could once only dream of.” The Nobel Assembly said optogenetics has fundamentally altered understanding of the brain and added: “Every day brings new discoveries, helping to solve one of humanity’s great mysteries: how our incredible brain works.”
The next question is whether optogenetics can move from first steps in clinical medicine to an established treatment for people with visual impairment. For now, the prize places the science at the center of neuroscience and leaves the clinical test case still in front of researchers.
