2013 Leibniz Prize recipient and University of Würzburg biophysicist honoured alongside US scientist Karl Deisseroth for discoveries in optogenetics

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Nobel Prize Laureates for Physiology or Medicine 2026

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The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) congratulates Professor Dr. Peter Hegemann and Professor Dr. Georg Nagel on receiving the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Hegemann heads the Experimental Biophysics group at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, while Nagel is Professor of Molecular Plant Physiology at the University of Würzburg. They share this year’s award with their US colleague Professor Dr. Karl Deisseroth of Stanford University for the fundamental work they have each done on light-gated ion channels, laying essential foundations for the development of optogenetics. Light-gated ion channels are proteins in the cell membrane that can be opened or closed using light. This allows electrically charged particles to flow across the membrane and alter the electrical activity of a cell. In this way it is possible to determine precisely which nerve cells are responsible for specific functions.

DFG President Professor Dr. Katja Becker said: “This is excellent news for research in Germany, particularly in the week following the decisions on the Excellence Strategy. The Nobel Prizes also highlight the appeal of our universities and the strength of the research conducted there. I am delighted for both laureates and offer them my warmest congratulations. The fact that Peter Hegemann is yet another recipient of the DFG’s Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize who has gone on to receive a Nobel Prize demonstrates once again that the Leibniz Prize recognises groundbreaking research achievements at an early stage.”

Hegemann also received the Leibniz Prize in recognition of his work on the development of optogenetics, a field he is regarded as having helped establish. The starting point was research into the unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas, which orients its swimming behaviour in response to light. In joint work with Ernst Bamberg, Hegemann and Nagel characterised the light-sensitive channelrhodopsins and demonstrated that they act directly as light-gated ion channels: when exposed to light, the channels open, ions flow across the cell membrane and the cell’s electrical activity changes. This discovery made it possible to introduce channelrhodopsins selectively into other cell types and control their activity using light. This laid the foundations for optogenetics, which enables the function of specific nerve cells and neural circuits to be studied with high temporal precision, particularly in neuroscience.

The two researchers have participated in various DFG-funded Research Units, Collaborative Research Centres and Transregios. Hegemann is also currently involved in Cluster of Excellence 2049 “NeuroCure”. Through this funding, the DFG supported both basic research into channelrhodopsins and their further development and use as optogenetic tools. In this way, the DFG has contributed to the development of the field over many years – from basic research on photoreceptors through to optogenetic applications.

Two female and ten male Leibniz prizewinners have gone on to receive the Nobel Prize after being awarded the most important research funding prize in Germany: 1988 Professor Dr. Hartmut Michel (Chemistry), 1991 Professor Dr. Erwin Neher and Professor Dr. Bert Sakmann (both Medicine), 1995 Professor Dr. Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard (Medicine), 2005 Professor Dr. Theodor W. Hänsch (Physics), 2007 Professor Dr. Gerhard Ertl (Chemistry), 2014 Professor Dr. Stefan W. Hell (Chemistry), 2020 Professor Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier (Chemistry) and Professor Dr. Reinhard Genzel (Physics), 2021 Professor Dr. Benjamin List (Chemistry), 2022 Professor Dr. Svante Pääbo (Medicine) and 2023 Professor Dr. Ferenc Krausz (Physics).