Nobel Prize in Medicine Awarded to American Karl Deisseroth and Germans Peter Hegemann and Jörg Nagel

The Nobel Committee announced on Monday that American scientist Karl Deisseroth and Germans Georg Nagel and Peter Hegemann have been awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, in recognition of their discoveries in the field of optogenetics. The 2025 prize went to Americans Marianne Bronkhorst and Fred Ramsdell, and Japanese scientist Shimon Sagiv, for their research on peripheral immune tolerance, which refers to the immune tolerance achieved by certain cells after reaching maturity. In 2024, Americans Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun won the same prize for their discovery of microRNA and its role in gene regulation. Laureates of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, awarded by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, receive a monetary award of 11 million Swedish kronor (approximately 1.2 million US dollars), along with a gold medal presented by the King of Sweden.