ERC grantee Peter Hegemann shares Nobel Prize in Medicine
Today's award follows that of fifteen other ERC grantees who have received Nobel Prizes. The ERC has supported Professor Hegemann's frontier research through two major grants - an individual Advanced Grant, as well as a Synergy Grant together with two other researchers.
Ekaterina Zaharieva, Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation, said:
‘Congratulations to Peter Hegemann, Karl Deisseroth and Georg Nagel. Their discoveries have transformed our ability to study the brain. The European Union is proud to have supported Professor Hegemann. His achievements show why giving scientists the freedom to pursue bold ideas can open entirely new fields of knowledge and create opportunities for future medical advances.’
ERC President Professor Maria Leptin commented:
‘Congratulations to today’s three Nobel Prize laureates in Physiology or Medicine! We’re proud that Peter Hegemann is amongst the winners. The European Research Council has supported his cutting-edge research with two grants since 2016. Their breakthroughs are a reminder of why Europe needs to invest in blue-sky research and give outstanding researchers the freedom to follow their scientific instincts.'
In 2002, Hegemann discovered Channelrhodopsin-1, a light-sensitive protein that helped lay the foundations for optogenetics, a technique that uses light to control the activity of cells. With an individual ERC Advanced Grant awarded in 2016, he continued this line of research, exploring new light-sensitive proteins and their potential as optogenetic tools. The project led, amongst other results, to the discovery of the first heterodimeric rhodopsin, a previously unknown type of light-sensitive protein. Professor Hegemann is part of the ERC Synergy Grant since 2022, together with two other grantees, aiming to extend optogenetics to a wider range of biological systems.
The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institute highlighted that optogenetics has fundamentally changed neuroscience. Researchers can now investigate neural circuits with a precision that was previously impossible, including circuits relevant to neurological and psychiatric disorders. The method is also being explored in clinical research, including attempts to restore sight in people with visual impairment.
Professor Hegemann's work has previously received major international recognition. In 2021, he shared the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award with Dieter Oesterhelt and Karl Deisseroth for the discovery of light-sensitive microbial proteins and their use in developing optogenetics. In 2020, he received the Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine for the development of optogenetics.
He also contributed to a collaborative project that received EU funding.
About the ERC
The ERC, set up by the European Union in 2007, is the premier European funding organisation for excellent frontier research. It funds creative researchers of any nationality and age, to run projects based across Europe. The ERC offers four core grant schemes: Starting Grants, Consolidator Grants, Advanced Grants and Synergy Grants. With its additional Proof of Concept Grant scheme, the ERC helps grantees to bridge the gap between their pioneering research and early phases of its commercialisation. A new ERC Plus Grants scheme is open for applications since June 2026. The ERC is led by an independent governing body, the Scientific Council. Maria Leptin has been the President of the ERC since November 2021. The overall ERC budget from 2021 to 2027 is more than €16 billion, as part of the Horizon Europe programme, which is under the responsibility of Ekaterina Zaharieva, European Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation.