DOMINANT ANGLE
Canberra takes note of the Nobel Prize in Medicine, the laboratory tool: a light switch for neurons, born from a green alga, presented as a new era for neuroscience.
Dominant angle identified — does not reflect unanimity of this country’s media
KEY POINTS
- 01
Karl Deisseroth (54 years old, Stanford), Peter Hegemann (71 years old, Humboldt) and Georg Nagel (73 years old, Wurtzbourg) receive the Nobel Prize in Medicine for light-activated ion channels and optogenetics.
- 02
The research started with a single-celled green algae swimming towards light; a protein illuminated with blue light opens a channel and creates an electrical impulse.
- 03
Deisseroth created a light switch for neurons in the brains of living mice; the award is 12 million Swedish crowns ($1.718 million according to ABC).
ANALYSIS
Canberra, October 6, 2026. Australian media are treating the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, announced on Monday, October 5, at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, as the opening of Nobel Week, with the physics, chemistry, literature, peace, and economics prizes to come.
ABC News Australia and PerthNow report that American Karl Deisseroth, 54, from Stanford, and Germans Peter Hegemann, 71, from Humboldt University in Berlin, and Georg Nagel, 73, from the University of Wurtzbourg, are being recognized for their work on light-activated ion channels and optogenetics. The Nobel Committee, cited by ABC on X, estimates that the method "is now being used in laboratories around the world to reveal the brain's mysteries".
The two articles emphasize the scientific narrative, from origin to application. Peter Hegemann first studied how a single-celled green alga swims towards light. With Georg Nagel, he identified a protein that, when exposed to blue light, opens a channel and creates an electrical impulse; introducing it into other cells makes them sensitive to light. Karl Deisseroth then used the gene of this protein to manufacture a light-controlled switch in the brains of living mice.
PerthNow quotes Jeremy Berg, from the University of Pittsburgh, who sees optogenetics as "a very precise set of tools for doing experiments about how the brain works that are pretty hard to do any other way". Having worked at the National Institutes of Health in the early 2000s, he recalls that the agency had funded Karl Deisseroth for this vision, which has unfolded "pretty much spot-on".
The Nobel Assembly speaks of a new era in neuroscience, which is beginning to shed light on the pathways leading to behavior and disease. ABC specifies that the award is 12 million Swedish crowns, equivalent to $1.718 million according to its calculations. The excerpts provided do not detail clinical applications or Australian contributions.
