The winners of the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine are American Karl Deisseroth and Germans Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel. They won for 'discoveries concerning light-activated ion channels and optogenetics.' The committee praised their work and noted that it led to 'discoveries that led to optogenetics – a field that enables activating or deactivating individual nerve cells in the living brain. This method is now used in laboratories around the world to reveal the mysteries of the brain.'