Georg Nagel was born on August 24, 1953, in Weingarten, Germany. He is a biophysicist and a professor in the Neurophysiology Department at the University of Würzburg in Germany. His research studies light-sensitive parts in microorganisms and helps create tools that use light to control cells.
Scientific career
Georg Nagel studied biology and biophysics at the University of Konstanz, Germany. He earned his PhD from the University of Frankfurt in 1988 while working at the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics in Frankfurt. As a postdoc, he worked at Yale University and Rockefeller University in the United States. From 1992 to 2004, he led a research group in the Department of Biophysical Chemistry at the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics in Frankfurt. Since 2004, he has been a professor at the University of Würzburg, Germany. He first worked in the Department for Molecular Plant Physiology and Biophysics, and since 2019, he has been in the Department for Neurophysiology.
Research
Georg Nagel, along with Peter Hegemann, is credited with discovering channelrhodopsins, which led to the development of optogenetics. In 1995, Georg Nagel and Ernst Bamberg showed that a microbial rhodopsin called bacteriorhodopsin works in animal cells (Xenopus oocytes) and makes the cells sensitive to light. In 2003, Nagel proved that channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2) functions in mammalian cells, where blue light caused a change in the cell membrane's voltage. Later, working with Karl Deisseroth, Nagel used ChR2 in hippocampal neurons, where light pulses triggered electrical signals with precise timing. The first use of optogenetics in a whole animal, the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, was published in 2005 by Nagel and Alexander Gottschalk. This study used a modified version of ChR2 (H134R) that Nagel created to improve light responses. In 2007, Nagel used halorhodopsin from Natronomonas pharaonis to stop neurons from firing, marking the first optogenetic inhibition of brain activity. That same year, Nagel and Hegemann began using optogenetics to control cAMP levels. In 2015, Nagel, Shiqiang Gao, and Alexander Gottschalk's team identified Cyclop, the first 8 TM enzyme rhodopsin, which increases cGMP levels when activated by light. Through creating genetic tools, Nagel's research expanded optical control methods from ion channels and pumps to second messenger systems, applying these tools to many organisms, including plants.
Awards (selection)
- 2010 Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences, with Peter Hegemann and Ernst Bamberg
- 2010 Karl Heinz Beckurts Prize, with Peter Hegemann and Ernst Bamberg
- 2012 Zülch Prize
- 2013 Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine, with Peter Hegemann
- 2013 The Brain Prize, awarded by the Grete Lundbeck European Brain Research Foundation
- 2015 selected as Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO)
- 2019 Rumford Prize for "extraordinary contributions related to the invention and refinement of optogenetics," with Ernst Bamberg, Ed Boyden, Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, and Gero Miesenböck
- 2020 Shaw Prize in Life Sciences