STOCKHOLM, Sweden (Diya TV) — American scientist Karl Deisseroth and German researchers Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Monday for discoveries that allow researchers to control nerve cells with light.
The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet recognized their work on light-gated ion channels and optogenetics, a technique that helps scientists identify how specific neurons influence memory, emotions and behavior.
The discoveries began with Hegemann’s research into how a single-celled alga, Chlamydomonas, moves toward light. Working with Nagel, he identified channelrhodopsin, a light-sensitive protein that opens a channel through a cell’s membrane. Charged particles pass through the channel, changing the cell’s electrical activity.
Deisseroth and his colleagues then introduced the protein’s gene into rat nerve cells and demonstrated that light could trigger nerve signals. They published that breakthrough in the mid-2000s and subsequently applied the technique in living mice.
Researchers now use optogenetics to activate or suppress selected neurons and observe the resulting changes in behavior. The method allows scientists to test a neural circuit’s function directly, rather than simply observe its activity.
Stanford University said Deisseroth’s team developed ways to deliver the necessary genes into nervous tissue and direct light to selected cells through implanted fiber-optic cables.
Deisseroth is a professor of bioengineering and psychiatry at Stanford. Hegemann works at Humboldt University of Berlin, while Nagel works at the University of Würzburg.
“I couldn’t be happier,” Deisseroth said in a statement released by Stanford, describing the award as recognition of the progression from algae research to neuroscience experiments.
Clinical researchers are also investigating optogenetics as a way to restore sight in people with visual impairment. Those efforts extend the technology beyond laboratory studies, although the Nobel recognition honors the discoveries that established the method.
