Nobel Prize 2026: How JNU scientist Suneel Kateriya helped lay the groundwork for optogenetics | Today’s news
A tiny freshwater alga and an Indian scientist’s doctoral research in Germany are part of the scientific path to the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
In 2001, Suneel Kateriya was working in Professor Peter Hegemann’s lab in Regensburg, Germany, looking for the genes of Chlamydomonas, a single-celled algae that can detect light and move towards light.
Kateriya identified two light-sensitive proteins. These genes were later named channelrhodopsin-1 and channelrhodopsin-2.
Quick answers to key questions
•5 QUESTIONS
Optogenetics is a technique that allows researchers to control specific cells using light. It works by introducing light-sensitive proteins into neurons, allowing light to be used to precisely change the electrical activity of those neurons.
Suneel Kateriya’s research identified light-sensitive proteins in the alga Chlamydomonas that laid the foundation for optogenetics, enabled precise control of neuronal activity, and opened new avenues for neuroscience research.
Advances in optogenetics have allowed scientists to more precisely study neural circuits and link specific neurons to behaviors such as learned fear responses in animals, improving our understanding of brain function.
Optogenetics faces challenges such as efficient gene delivery, long-term safety, precise targeting of cells, and the necessary light intensity for practical use in clinical settings.
Yes, scientists should consider optogenetics, given its potential for targeted control of cells in various neurological conditions, although it remains primarily a research tool at this stage.
More than two decades later, Kateriya is a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), while his work forms part of the scientific foundation behind optogenetics, a technique that allows researchers to control selected cells, including neurons, with light.
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The Nobel Assembly has awarded the 2026 Medicine Prize to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel for the discovery of light-gated ion channels and optogenetics.
Kateriya described his contribution as part of a wider collaborative effort.
“Basic science and academic excellence are needed for greater innovation,” he told India Today Digital.
It started with an eyelash
The original research was not focused on understanding the human brain.
“We had a fundamental question: how does this alga sense light and where are the genes?” said Kateriya. “We never thought it would be used to control the human brain.”
The researchers found gene sequences encoding rhodopsin proteins and suggested that they might function as light-gated ion channels.
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The experiments that followed showed that these proteins act as small molecular gates: light causes them to open, changing the cell’s electrical activity. The first findings regarding channelrhodopsin-1 appeared in Science in 2002, followed by research on channelrhodopsin-2 in PNAS in 2003.
How does a “light switch” work?
Neurons communicate through electrical signals involving the movement of charged particles or ions.
Channelrhodopsin combines a light sensor with an ion channel. When its gene is introduced into a neuron, light can be effectively used to turn on that neuron or affect its activity.
Professor Nishith Gupta of the BITS Pilani campus in Hyderabad explained why this was important.
“We could stimulate the brain long before optogenetics,” he said. “What we lacked was the ability to select a specific population of neurons and control their activity on the millisecond timescale in which the brain communicates.”
Dr Santhosh Sethuramanujam of IIT Madras said that older approaches can affect multiple types of cells in a brain region, while optogenetics allows for more targeted control.
“By simply illuminating brain tissue, scientists can turn targeted cells on or off with precise, millisecond precision,” he said.
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From research tool to potential treatment
Optogenetics has since been used to study neural circuitry and memory, including experiments in mice that linked specific neurons to learned fear responses.
This technology has also entered the early stages of human research. In a 2021 study, a patient with retinitis pigmentosa was given a channelrhodopsin-carrying gene called ChrimsonR. Special glasses then projected the light onto the retina.
Using the glasses, the patient could perceive, locate, count and touch objects using the treated eye. Without them, the patient would not be able to detect them.
In one patient it was a partial recovery, not a restoration of normal vision.
“Blindness is the furthest away because the retina is accessible to both gene transfer and light,” Gupta said.
what’s next
Despite its promise, optogenetics remains largely a research technology. Scientists still face challenges that include gene delivery, long-term safety, cell targeting, and the intensity of light required.
“If I had to name the biggest barrier, it would be achieving safe and permanent control of exactly the right cells in the human brain,” Gupta said.
Indian laboratories are also using optogenetics to study vision, glioblastoma and genetic diseases.
For Kateriya, the journey has closed: from identifying light-sensitive genes in a microscopic alga as a PhD student to using related tools at JNU to study disease.
“Petr taught me hours and hours as a PhD student,” he said. “This is very important.
