Nobel laureate Deisseroth says optogenetics holds 'great promise' for treating blindness

Karl Deisseroth, a Stanford University professor who shared this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for pioneering optogenetics — a technology that uses light to control cells in living tissue — said the technique holds broad clinical potential, including for the treatment of blindness.

Speaking to the Associated Press on Monday (local time), Deisseroth described optogenetics as "fundamentally a basic-science research tool" but said it is also "being used to begin developing therapies." He explained the technology as "turning on or off specific types of cells using light," adding that it has recently been applied in humans to treat blindness. The technique currently allows researchers to switch complex animal cells on or off with millisecond precision by harnessing light-sensitive microbial proteins.

Deisseroth said the approach could help identify cells that cause or correct a given condition, enabling targeted treatment by controlling those cells. "Of late, great promise has also emerged in the clinical domain," he said. Optogenetics is currently being used to test treatments for retinitis pigmentosa, a hereditary condition that causes progressive vision loss.

He also spoke about his sense of mission as a physician-scientist. "As a physician-scientist and psychiatrist, I deeply care about my patients — particularly those with autism or depression — and I care about the hope this research can bring," he said. He added that as a basic scientist, he has a profound interest in understanding how the brain — "this remarkable organ" — works and integrates everything that makes us human.

He said researchers around the world, not just his own team, are now using optogenetics to understand how the brain functions, how animals operate, and how humans carry out complex perception, cognition and behavior.

On winning the Nobel Prize, Deisseroth said he had not expected it at all and was left speechless when he received the notification.

"I was so surprised that I couldn't speak for a while. It was as if I had lost the ability to form words," he said. "It took a minute or two to collect myself." He added that his daily routine would continue as normal regardless of the prize — and that his first order of business that day was making sandwiches for his children before they left for school.

Earlier, the Nobel Committee at Sweden's Karolinska Institute named Deisseroth a co-recipient of this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine alongside Peter Hegemann, a professor at Humboldt University of Berlin, and Georg Nagel, a professor at the University of Würzburg. Hegemann and Nagel discovered a protein called channelrhodopsin, while Deisseroth was recognized for converting that protein into a switch capable of controlling nerve cells with light.