Nobel Prize 2026 winners: full list of all six prizes and what each was for

Short answer: all six 2026 Nobel Prizes have now been announced (5–12 October 2026):

• Medicine: Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel, for optogenetics
• Physics: Francis Halzen, for discovering high-energy neutrinos from space
• Chemistry: Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai, for work on how molecules "choose" a left- or right-handed form
• Literature: Anne Carson (Canada)
• Peace: Navi Pillay (South Africa), who is of Indian Tamil origin
• Economic Sciences: Robert E. Hall and Michael Woodford (US), for the foundations of the models central banks use to steady the economy

Each prize is worth 12 million Swedish kronor (shared if there's more than one winner). They are presented on 10 December, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death, in Stockholm and Oslo.

All 2026 winners

• Physiology or Medicine (5 Oct): Deisseroth, Hegemann and Nagel, "for their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics."

- Hegemann and Nagel identified channelrhodopsin, a light-sensitive protein from algae.

- Deisseroth put its gene into nerve cells and switched them on with blue light, first in rat cells and then in living mouse brains.

- Optogenetics now lets scientists turn specific brain cells on and off with light.

• Physics (6 Oct): Francis Halzen, for "decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin."

- Neutrinos are tiny, almost massless particles that pass through nearly everything.

- Halzen led the push to build IceCube, light sensors buried deep in the ice at the South Pole, which found high-energy neutrinos from outside our solar system.

• Chemistry (7 Oct): Henri B. Kagan (France) and Kenso Soai (Japan), "for the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis."

- Many molecules come in two mirror-image forms, like left and right hands (chirality), and the two can act very differently as medicines.

- Kagan showed a catalyst can make a product purer in one hand than itself. Soai found a reaction whose product speeds up its own production, turning a tiny excess of one hand into a large one: a lab demonstration of how life might have come to use only one hand.

• Literature (8 Oct): Anne Carson (Canada), "for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms…"

- A poet, essayist, translator and classics scholar, known for Autobiography of Red (1998), Nox (2010) and translations of Sappho.

- The first Canadian winner since Alice Munro in 2013.

• Peace (9 Oct): Navanethem "Navi" Pillay (South Africa), "for her efforts to promote peace and international law."

- Born in Durban in 1941 into a family of Indian Tamil origin, she defended opponents of apartheid, including Nelson Mandela.

- She became a judge on South Africa's High Court, the UN tribunal for Rwanda and the ICC in The Hague, and was UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (2008–2014).

- The committee said she has "significantly enlarged the scope and impact of international law."

- Her full story: petitionfox.in/answers/who-is-navi-pillay-the-indian-origin-…

• Economic Sciences (12 Oct): Robert E. Hall (Stanford) and Michael Woodford (Columbia), "for microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic stabilisation."

- In plain words: they built models of the whole economy from the choices of individual households and firms. These models help predict how the economy reacts to shocks and to interest-rate changes.

- Committee chair John Hassler said their work gives "a stable theoretical foundation for the models that are now used by central banks and governments around the world," so "we are better equipped to deal with shocks in the economy, such as energy crises."

- Woodford is known for Interest and Prices (2003), on how central banks steer inflation with interest rates and by signalling future rates ("forward guidance"). Hall is known for work on household spending, unemployment and booms and busts, and for years chaired the US committee that dates recessions.

- Woodford said: "It's a tremendous honor, it's a surprise."

Who picks the winners

The Karolinska Institutet's Nobel Assembly picks Medicine; the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences picks Physics, Chemistry and Economics; the Swedish Academy picks Literature; and the Norwegian Nobel Committee picks Peace in Oslo.

Which 2026 Nobel Prize surprised you most, and who would you have picked? Share your view below.

Updated 12 October 2026: all six prizes announced.