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SCIENCE & TECH

Nobel medicine prize goes to light switch for nerve cells

Hegemann and Nagel found the protein behind optogenetics in a single-celled alga that swims towards light, in the early 2000s.

Whitehall Minute
Transmission electron microscope image of a Chlamydomonas green alga cell, the kind of single-celled alga whose light-sensitive protein led to optogenetics