The Shaw Prize Lecture on Life Science and Medicine 2020

Three complementary lectures explain the development and applications of optogenetics. Gero Miesenböck traces optical control of neuronal activity from early experiments to studies of sleep, including neurons that respond to accumulated sleep need and molecular mechanisms governing sleep pressure.

Peter Hegemann connects microbial photobiology to channelrhodopsins that control neuronal membrane voltage. He discusses their use in studying development and learning, and prospects for extending optical control to enzymes, transcription and translation.

Georg Nagel follows the discovery and expression of microbial rhodopsins with light-sensitive transport and enzymatic functions. His examples include Channelrhodopsin-2 and its H134R variant, halorhodopsin, the more light-sensitive ChR2/XXL, the rhodopsin guanylyl cyclase Cyclop, and anion-channelrhodopsins in tobacco plants. Together, the talks connect molecular mechanisms with experimental control of neural and plant systems.