The Dr. Herbert Wertheim Trust for Humanity has announced the Wertheim Laureate Prize, which invites eligible recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine each year to individually direct $1 million to causes they believe will do the most good.
In its inaugural year, three 2026 recipients—Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, and George Nagel—were honored for their work developing optogenetics, a technique that uses light to control individual nerve cells in the brain. The trio, announced October 5, will share a Nobel prize of 12 million Swedish crowns ($1.2 million).
The Wertheim Laureate Prize rests on a simple idea, according to the Trust: “The scientists the world has just honored for transforming medicine and physiology are among the best judges of where philanthropy can make the greatest difference.”
