Colombia

Bogotá, October 6, 2026. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded on Monday, October 5, to American Karl Deisseroth and Germans Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel. Portafolio and El Colombiano, which reproduce the same dispatch, focus on the use of optogenetics: a discipline that allows us to understand how certain cells contribute to learning, fear, addiction, and movement.

The Colombian press emphasizes the therapeutic scope. According to Portafolio, the work of Deisseroth, a psychiatrist and neurologist, and his colleagues "could one day" lead to treatments for neurological and sensory disorders, such as Parkinson's disease and epilepsy. In clinical medicine, researchers use the method to try to restore the vision of people with impaired vision. The Nobel Committee, cited by the newspaper, states that the researchers were able to reveal the neural circuits that control memories, feelings, and behaviors related to neurological and psychiatric disorders. Its president, Per Svenningsson, says that optogenetics "offers opportunities to map the brain".

Portafolio also reports the anecdote of the Secretary General of the Committee, Thomas Perlmann, who first called Deisseroth, "very tired" and probably asleep at the call.

La República adds two of its own readings. The first is financial: each category will receive this year 12 million Swedish crowns, approximately $1.2 million, or one million more than last year (an increase of around 9.1%). Each laureate will receive four million crowns; the Nobel Foundation announced the adjustment on September 18, for the 125th anniversary of the first award. The second is technological: according to a survey by Deutsche Welle relayed by the newspaper, six of the nine artificial intelligence systems questioned were betting on research around GLP-1, against obesity and diabetes, and the committee took "another path".

The same economic media devotes a brief in its "Caja fuerte" section to the celebration scene of Deisseroth at Stanford with Professor Markus Covert, and recalls that the calendar continues: physics on Tuesday, October 6, chemistry on Wednesday, October 7, literature on Thursday, October 8, and then peace and economics, until Monday, October 12. The announcement times are given in Colombian time, a sign of a local audience invited to follow the announcements live.

None of the articles in the pool mention Colombian participation or debate on research funding in the country: the perspective is that of an attentive spectator, focused on science, the prize money, and the story around the predictions.