German Research Foundation

Scientists from the United States and Germany have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for work on how light can be used to study and control brain activity. The findings, honoured by the Nobel Assembly in Stockholm, are widely recognised as foundational for optogenetics, a technique that lets researchers switch specific neurons on and off with light and has transformed modern neuroscience.

A researcher studying the evolution of insect brains has received an Emmy Noether Award and will carry out the work in Mainz, Germany. The funding programme of the German Research Foundation supports outstanding early-career scientists in building their own research groups. The award allows the researcher to investigate how insect brains have developed over evolutionary time at a German institution.