DOMINANT ANGLE
Paris takes away from this Nobel the therapeutic promise of optogenetics, from brain mapping to vision restoration, with an emphasis on the clinical trial conducted in part at the Institute of Vision.
Dominant angle identified — does not reflect unanimity of this country’s media
KEY POINTS
- 01
The prize, worth 12 million Swedish crowns ($1.2 million), honors Karl Deisseroth (54 years old), Peter Hegemann (71 years old), and Georg Nagel (73 years old), according to L'Express.
- 02
In 2021, a blind patient with retinitis pigmentosa regained some vision thanks to optogenetic treatment, according to Le Monde.
- 03
Per Svenningsson, chairman of the Nobel Committee for Medicine, speaks of a "brain mapping that we could previously only dream of".
ANALYSIS
Paris, October 6, 2026. The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded on Monday, October 5, to American Karl Deisseroth and Germans Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel, "for their discoveries concerning light-activated ion channels and optogenetics," reports HuffPost France. Le Monde, L'Obs, RFI, and HuffPost quote Per Svenningsson, president of the Nobel Committee for Medicine: a "brain mapping that we could only dream of before."
RFI details the origin of the discovery. Peter Hegemann first sought to understand how the single-celled alga Chlamydomonas swims towards a light source. Georg Nagel identified channelrhodopsin: under blue light, it opens a channel that lets in ions and generates an electrical impulse. Karl Deisseroth introduced his gene into rat neurons, with a publication in 2005, and then, two years later, made the device work in the brain of a living mouse.
The medical angle dominates. Le Monde describes a dual challenge: understanding how the brain forms memories, emotions, and behaviors, but also developing treatments for vision disorders or neurological and psychiatric diseases. In 2021, a first blind patient, suffering from retinitis pigmentosa, a disease that affects nearly two million people worldwide, regained some vision thanks to optogenetic treatment. Ophthalmologist José-Alain Sahel, founder and former director of the Vision Institute in Paris, now in Pittsburgh, who co-directed the trial, welcomes "a very deserved reward that all specialists were waiting for." L'Express also mentions the hope of improving cochlear implants, while Le Monde and HuffPost indicate that the method could one day lead to treatments for Parkinson's and epilepsy.
L'Express provides the figures: Karl Deisseroth is 54 years old, Peter Hegemann 71 years old, Georg Nagel 73 years old, and the three share 12 million Swedish crowns, or $1.2 million. Thomas Perlmann, secretary general of the Nobel Assembly, summarizes: "Optogenetics makes it possible to activate or deactivate the activity of individual nerve cells in a living brain."
Sud Ouest and Ouest-France finally put the announcement into the Nobel week, which opens with medicine and continues with physics on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday, and literature on Thursday.
SOURCES (4)
- HuffPost FranceMEDIUM
- L'ExpressMEDIUM
