Shedding Light on the Brain: Neuroscientists Reflect on Optogenetics Nobel

On October 5, three scientists—Peter Hegemann, Georg Nagel, and Karl Deisseroth—were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the development of optogenetics, a revolutionary tool that allows neuroscientists to use light to turn on and off individual brain cells, even those located deep within the brain. Hegemann and Nagel, the Nobel Assembly noted, “discovered a remarkable protein, channelrhodopsin, in a single-celled alga,” and Deisseroth “transformed the protein into a light-controlled switch for nerve cells.” Viviana Gradinaru (BS ‘05), Caltech’s Troendle Professor of Neurosci