Nobel Prize in Medicine for Peter Hegemann: How an algal protein changed brain research

© The Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine. Ill. Mattias Karlén

05.10.2026
Nobel Prize in Medicine for Peter Hegemann: How an algal protein changed brain research

Brain City Berlin

The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to biophysicist Peter Hegemann of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. He shares the prize with Georg Nagel of the University of Würzburg and the US researcher Karl Deisseroth. The Nobel Committee is honouring their discoveries of light-gated ion channels, which paved the way for optogenetics. It is a special day for Brain City Berlin.

From algal protein to brain research tool

It all began with a green alga. In it, Hegemann and Nagel discovered the protein channelrhodopsin, which makes cells sensitive to light: when blue light hits the protein, a tiny channel opens in the cell membrane. Karl Deisseroth introduced the gene for this protein into nerve cells in rats, which enabled him to activate them selectively with light.

This gave rise to optogenetics, a method that makes it possible to switch individual nerve cells on and off in the living brain. Researchers can use it to study how nerve cells shape memories, emotions and behaviour. “This method is now used in laboratories around the world to unlock the secrets of the brain,” the Nobel Committee wrote on X. The technique is now also being tested in therapies, for example in ophthalmology.

Basic research for the long haul

Hegemann’s career shows how curiosity can produce a tool for medicine. For decades, he studied how algae perceive light, long before anyone could foresee that his findings would transform neuroscience. He discovered channelrhodopsin in the early 2000s, while still at the University of Regensburg. In 2004, he moved to Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, where he heads the Experimental Biophysics group and is now Hertie Senior Professor of Neuroscience. In Berlin, he and his team continued to study the light-sensitive proteins and decoded how they work in detail.

What the prize means for Berlin as a centre of science

A Nobel Prize draws the attention of the international research community to the institution where the laureate works and raises its profile among early-career researchers worldwide. This can benefit both Humboldt-Universität and Berlin’s neuroscience community as a whole, which already works closely with institutions such as Charité.

Berlin’s Senator for Higher Education and Research, Ina Czyborra, congratulated Hegemann and his fellow laureates. She said the award was a cause for great joy for Berlin as a centre of science and that, through its research strategy, the State of Berlin intends to strengthen support for this particular area of health research.

Hegemann joins a line of Nobel laureates who have carried out research in Berlin: Gerhard Ertl received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2007 for his work at the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, and Emmanuelle Charpentier received it in 2020 for developing the CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing tool. She now heads the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens in Berlin. Hegemann’s prize shows once again the impact that basic research in Brain City Berlin can have.

The Nobel Prizes will be presented in Stockholm on 10 December.

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