--- title: "Georg Nagel Kept Going Until the Signal Came: The Persistence Behind a Nobel Prize" description: Georg Nagel shares the 2026 Nobel Prize in Medicine for channelrhodopsin. How persistence, a lucky mistake and generosity led to optogenetics. author: Dr Marina Nani (Editor-in-Chief) date: 2026-11-08T11:32:06.112Z updated: 2026-11-08T11:33:15.322Z canonical: https://thequantumoflight.com/article/georg-nagel-kept-going-until-the-signal-came-the-persistence-behind-a-nobel-prize image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/pexels-36713237.webp categories: Literary Culture content_type: Feature publication: The Quantum of Light schema_type: Article about: - type: Person name: Georg Nagel description: Of the University of Würzburg. With Peter Hegemann he discovered channelrhodopsin, and shares the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. --- Few people have received news of a Nobel Prize in a lovelier place. When Georg Nagel took the call, he was sitting on a terrace in the hills between Naples and Rome, with olive trees below him and a lemon tree beside him. He and his wife, who comes from Naples, spend their winters there now that he has retired. It is warmer than Würzburg, he explained, and there is no fog. He was, by his own account, completely surprised. He had already shared the Shaw Prize six years earlier and believed the honours had come to an end. He had even told friends who watch the October announcements to keep cool. ## The Protein That Made Cells See Nagel was born in Weingarten, Germany, in 1953, and earned his doctorate at the University of Frankfurt in 1988. He is a professor of molecular plant physiology at the University of Würzburg, and the discoveries behind his prize were made at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysics in Frankfurt. With [Peter Hegemann](https://thequantumoflight.com/article/peter-hegemann-asked-how-a-tiny-alga-finds-the-light-and-his-curiosity-won-a-nobel-prize), he discovered channelrhodopsin, a protein from a single-celled green alga that opens a tiny channel when blue light falls on it. To prove what the protein did, the team placed the alga's genes into frog eggs. When light shone on them, an electrical current flowed. They found that any cell carrying the protein became sensitive to light. [Karl Deisseroth](https://thequantumoflight.com/article/karl-deisseroth-still-sees-his-patients-the-nobel-psychiatrist-who-turned-light-into-a-switch-for-th) then placed the protein in nerve cells, and optogenetics was born: the ability to switch brain cells on and off with light. The three men now share the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. ## Hard at First, Then a Lucky Mistake Nagel does not pretend the work was easy. In the beginning, he said, it was hard. Then he had some luck. A few solutions that had been prepared wrongly turned out to be more acidic than intended, and suddenly he saw a clear signal. From there, he could work out what the protein was. With the second version of the protein, everything became much easier. That story holds a lesson every scientist knows and most people forget. Breakthroughs rarely arrive as a clean line from plan to result. They arrive after months of nothing, through an accident that only a prepared mind can recognise. ## Honest About What Is Still to Come Nagel is also unusually honest about the limits of his own discovery. As far as he knows, he said, only one patient has so far benefited directly from optogenetics. That is why he thought it was still too early for a prize in medicine. Its greatest impact so far has been on our understanding of the brain, and he believes the treatments may take longer to follow. He is equally generous about his colleagues. Deisseroth, he said, did an excellent job of sharing the protein with other laboratories, making it popular and explaining it to the world, and that contribution was essential to its success in neuroscience. ## What His Story Teaches You **Keep going through the hard beginning.** Most worthwhile projects feel hopeless at the start. If you are in the middle of something difficult this autumn, the absence of results is not proof that you are on the wrong path. **Pay attention to your mistakes.** Nagel's clear signal came from solutions that were wrong. When something goes unexpectedly this week, ask what it might be showing you before you throw it away. **Be honest about what your work has not yet achieved.** Nagel's modesty makes his achievement more credible, not less. You earn trust by saying what you have done and what is still to come. **Give credit freely.** The people who explain, share and champion an idea matter as much as the people who find it. Thank them by name. **Make room for the terrace.** Nagel's prize found him resting in the sun, far from the laboratory. Rest is part of a long working life, not a reward you earn only at the end. ## A Prize at the Right Time Nagel thought the prize had come too early. The Nobel Committee thought differently: optogenetics has changed how we understand the brain, and every day brings new discoveries. Somewhere between those two views sits a truth for all of us. The value of your work is not always visible to you, and it is rarely visible all at once. Keep going, keep your sense of humour, and leave a little time for the olive trees.