2026 Nobel Prizes Honor Advances in Optogenetics and Neutrino Research

Belgian physicist Francis Halzen has won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics for research into neutrinos and his contributions to the IceCube experiment, The Brussels Times reported Tuesday. IceCube is a neutrino observatory at the South Pole that detects the elusive subatomic particles using sensors embedded deep in Antarctic ice.

Halzen credited the researchers who joined the project despite early skepticism. He is the second Belgian recipient of the physics prize, following François Englert in 2013.

On Monday, the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly to Karl Deisseroth of Stanford University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Peter Hegemann of Humboldt University of Berlin, and Georg Nagel of the University of Würzburg. They were honored “for their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics.”

Hegemann and Nagel discovered channelrhodopsin, a light-sensitive protein in a single-celled alga. Deisseroth later introduced the gene for the protein into rat nerve cells and used blue light to trigger neural signals, publishing the work in 2005. He subsequently demonstrated the technique in living mice. Optogenetics allows researchers to control nerve-cell activity with light and study how neural circuits shape memories, emotions and behavior.

The Nobel Prize in Literature is scheduled to be announced Thursday. The Indian Express reported that Chinese experimental writer Can Xue was the bookmakers’ favorite, while noting that betting markets have no access to the Swedish Academy’s confidential nominations.