Psychiatrist part of trio to win Nobel in medicine for optogenetics

Deisseroth. Credit: Andrew Brodhead

By Sarah Lowden

This year’s Nobel Prize in medicine has been awarded to a research trio, including a practising doctor, who have made pioneering discoveries in optogenetics.

Dr Karl Deisseroth, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist from the US, discovered how to transform a protein into a light-controlled switch that effectively turns nerve cells on or off.

This technique of controlling nerve signals is called optogenetics, and it is helping researchers uncover the inner workings of our brain.

Deisseroth used the protein, channelrhodopsin, which comes from a single-celled alga discovered by his fellow prize-winners, German scientists Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel.

It all started with Hegemann’s research into the single-celled alga, Chlamydomonas, and its ability to swim towards a light source.

In the early 2000s he and Nagel discovered channelrhodopsin, an algal protein with unique properties, found on the surface of the cell. When a blue light is shone onto it, a channel opens through the protein. Charged ions then flow into the cell, creating an electrical impulse.