Dieter Oesterhelt from the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Peter Hegemann from Humboldt University and the U.S. American Karl Deisseroth from Stanford University will receive the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award 2021 for the discovery of light-sensitive proteins in the membrane of unicellular organisms and their use in the development of optogenetics. The work of Oesterhelt and his colleagues also paved the way to new medical applications. The Lasker Awards are considered among the most important biomedical research prizes in the USA and are each endowed with 250,000 US dollars. Ninety-five Lasker Laureates have also received the Nobel Prize, including the three Max Planck researchers Georges Köhler (Nobelprize in Medicine 1984), Ernst Ruska (Nobelprize in Physics 1986) and Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard (Nobelprize in Medicine 1995).