Videos · October 5, 2026 · 35 seconds
Optogenetics: The Nobel for a Light Switch Borrowed From Algae
Two German biophysicists found a light-switched channel in a single-celled alga, and a Stanford psychiatrist used it to fire brain cells with light. Optogenetics has now won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Read the full articleby Adam Canissario
Transcript
A LIGHT SWITCH FOR THE BRAIN
[THE NOBEL] Brain cells, switched by light.
- The 2026 Nobel Prize in medicine honors optogenetics, a way to switch brain cells on with light.
- It began with a one-celled alga that swims toward light using a specific light-switched protein.
[HOW IT WORKS] Then they put it in a brain.
- In 2005, Karl Deisseroth's lab put that protein in rat brain cells, and blue light made them fire.
- Scientists now use it to find the brain cells behind memory, fear, and appetite.
Read the full article at noozify.com. Images: Images: Dartmouth EMF (public domain); ZEISS Microscopy (CC BY 2.0). Music: an original score for Noozify.