Discovery began with single-celled alga swimming toward light
The Nobel Foundation announced the prize Monday in Stockholm, recognizing research that began with a single-celled alga swimming toward light and grew into a tool that researchers say is reshaping how the brain is studied.
“Optogenetics provides opportunities for mapping the brain in a way that we could once only dream of,” Per Svenningsson, chairman of the Nobel Committee for Physiology and Medicine, said in the committee’s announcement.
The technique grew out of basic research into how a single-celled alga finds light. Hegemann, of Humboldt University of Berlin, and Nagel, of the University of Würzburg, studied chlamydomonas, an alga that can detect and swim toward a light source. They identified a protein on the surface of the alga — channelrhodopsin — that opens an ion channel when illuminated by blue light, allowing ions to flow into the cell and produce an electrical impulse.
Deisseroth, of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Stanford University, then introduced a gene for channelrhodopsin into nerve cells of rats, making it possible to trigger a nerve signal when illuminating the cells with blue light.
“Using optogenetics, researchers have been able to reveal neural circuits governing specific memories, feelings and behaviors relevant for neurological and psychiatric disorders,” the Nobel Committee said in a release. “In clinical medicine, researchers are using the method in attempts to restore sight in people with visual impairment.”