Protein production in the brain, magic angles that twists material properties, and collisions in the Milky Way
The 2026 Kavli Prize

June 10, 2026 (Oslo, Norway)
Honoring groundbreaking scientific discovery, the recipients of The Kavli Prizes 2026 in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience are announced today by President Annelin Eriksen at The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, Oslo, Norway.

The discoveries honored in astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience are challenging assumptions, encouraging scientists to explore new ideas and furthering our understanding of how the world works. From revealing how our brains can be so extremely efficient in learning, to uncovering the hidden collisions under the seemingly harmonious spiral of the Milky Way, to our ability to change the properties of materials just by giving them a twist. Each of the discoveries honored today helps to answer vital questions and reveal further areas for investigation.

THE KAVLI PRIZE IN ASTROPHYSICS IS AWARDED TO:

Vasily Belokurov, Amina Helmi and Rodrigo Ibata

for uncovering the fossil evidence of past mergers proving that the Milky Way galaxy was built through hierarchical accretion.

THE KAVLI PRIZE IN NANOSCIENCE IS AWARDED TO:

Eva Y. Andrei, Pablo Jarillo-Herrero and Allan H. MacDonald

for foundational work that established the field of Twistronics.

THE KAVLI PRIZE IN NEUROSCIENCE IS AWARDED TO:

Christine Holt, Kelsey Martin, Erin Schuman and Oswald Steward

for the discovery of local protein translation in neurons and establishing its importance for brain development and plasticity.

10 scientists with 9 different nationalities and hailing from three continents are honored for their research that has broadened our understanding of the big, the small and the complex. The laureates in each field will share $1 million USD. They will be awarded The Kavli Prize in Oslo in September.

– Honoring these excellent scientists is not only a recognition of achievements, it is an investment in our shared future, affirming the curiosity, rigor, and courage that drive human progress, says Annelin Eriksen, President of The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.

The recipients of The Kavli Prize represent what is best in the scientific enterprise. Their work builds on one another, deepens our understanding of ourselves and the world we live in, and creates new opportunities for the next generation of theoreticians, investigators and inventors. The science honored today is already helping to lay the groundwork for a world of new opportunities in medicine, technology and our understanding of the universe. 

- The recipients have used the remnants of devoured galaxies to prove that our galaxy is the survivor of enormous, billion-year-old cosmic collisions, giving us a revolutionary view of how our universe is formed, says Per Barth Lilje, Chair of The Kavli Prize Committee in Astrophysics.

For decades, the Milky Way was seen as a stable, beautiful spiral. The 2026 Kavli Prize Laureates in Astrophysics, Amina Helmi, Vasily Belokurov, and Rodrigo Ibata, have overturned this idea. 

Using the most precise instruments available, the scientists have effectively performed cosmic archaeology. They’ve analyzed vast, stretched-out structures of stars, known as stellar streams. These are the visible wreckage of smaller dwarf galaxies ripped apart by the Milky Way's gravity, providing a detailed record of the galaxy's history of mergers.

This work has shifted the paradigm of galaxy formation from a slow, steady state to a dynamic, violent narrative of galactic cannibalism.

Most importantly, these streams act as cosmic seismometers. By measuring how the stars are moving, scientists are measuring the galaxy’s gravitational potential, allowing them to map the distribution and structure of the elusive dark matter, the invisible scaffolding that holds the Milky Way together.

The discoveries have also fundamentally altered how we conceive of the universe: galaxies are not just collections of stars; they are living historical objects, constantly being born, damaged, and rebuilt by the gravitational dance of massive cosmic mergers.

2026 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics

- Twistronics introduced a new paradigm in nanoscience and opened a powerful new platform for exploring interaction-driven quantum materials, says Mari-Ann Einarsrud, Chair of The Kavli Prize Committee in Nanoscience. 

The 2026 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience honours Eva Y. Andrei, Pablo Jarillo-Herrero and Allan H. MacDonald for “foundational work that established the field of Twistronics”. The method of combining two or more atomically thin layers stacked on top of each other, while twisted, is the fundament for the new-established field. When naming the new discipline, a word play on “twist” and “electronics” were combined. 

It might sound like magic, but it is nanoscience: Rotating flat layers of the nanomaterial graphene at what turned out to be a magic angle of 1,1° has proven to give the materials unconventional properties; one example is superconductivity. 

By this simple concept, scientists can induce new properties in materials without changing the composition.

The awarded scientists are two experimentalists and one theoretician. A new era in materials science started after graphene was isolated in 2004 and used to build electronical devices.

Eva Y. Andrei used the discovery of graphene to further pioneer research and showed how geometric control of graphene bilayer could change material properties. The idea of twisting and rotating was so fundamentally unheard of at that time; she found it a nightmare to get the work published. This changed with her perseverance and continuous research. As in a delicious plot twist, the same journal which had refused to send her paper to peer review, described Eva Andrei’s research as “the scientific breakthrough of the year” in 2009.

Her innovations were by 2011 set in a broader theoretical framework by Allan H. MacDonald. As a theoretician, he showed that small rotation angles could have the largest impact. The “magic angle” of 1,1° was now confirmed as the sweet spot where huge quantities of electrons gather at the same energy level, which creates the very best conditions for superconductivity. 

With a well-known nose for science conundrums, Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, was already in the field. The suggested approaches within the emerging field were taken further by experimenting on obtaining control over the nanomaterials, rotation, and temperature. In 2018 Pablo Jarillo-Herrero (et al.) published two papers on the subject in the same issue of Nature.

The most exciting result was when electronic resistance dropped to zero at 1,7 Kelvin for a twisted bilayer of graphene, showing perfect conditions for superconductivity. In this system, electron-electron interactions for superconductivity were proved to be stronger than previously known. For the future ahead, Twistronics might revolutionize electronics and optoelectronics.

2026 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience 

How can you learn something new in merely minutes? The brain’s brilliance lies not in its size, but in its highly decentralized, modular, and rapid self-sufficiency. The groundbreaking discovery of 'Local protein Translation' fundamentally rewrites our understanding of how neurons form and modify neuronal connections.

Local protein translation is the process by which cells make proteins directly at synapses, the locations where they will be needed, instead of making all proteins centrally in the cell body.

– These discoveries have helped us understand how the thousands of synapses hosted by a single brain cell can function independently and give rise to the information processing capability of neuronal networks. This year´s recipients challenged traditional views of how proteins are formed in neurons. Decades of work by the laureates uncovered that while the genetic code is in the nucleus of the cells, the proteins are made locally, near the synapses that connect the cells. These discoveries fundamentally alter the way we understand plasticity in brain cells and will have implications for studies of both neurological and psychiatric conditions, says Edvard Moser, Chair of The Kavli Prize Committee in Neuroscience. 

Scientists long believed that proteins were only produced inside the cell body. This was a strong dogma until the 1990s. The new understanding driven by this year’s Kavli Prize recipients has changed our perception of how the brain works. In his science diary, Oswald Steward writes how he discovered in electron microscopy preparations that polyribosomes, machinery that enables protein synthesis, exists at the base of synapses, where cells make connections with each other.

Later, Erin Schuman showed that synaptic plasticity driven by growth factors required rapid and local protein synthesis. Her idea that extensions of a neuron, dendrites, could produce their own proteins was referred to as crazy at the time. Her discoveries were met with push-back, but then Kelsey Martin, Christine Holt and others backed her up.

Martin showed in a different system that strengthening of connections between neurons during learning requires protein synthesis local to the individually stimulated synapse.

Christine Holt discovered that nerve fibers in the developing brain can navigate towards chemical cues even without contact with the cell body, showing that the axonal branches of neurons have their own machinery for supplying new proteins. 

The discovery that proteins can be produced directly where they are needed in the brain, is the core of this year´s Kavli Prize in neuroscience and offers tangible hope for the development of new methods to treat a wide spectrum of brain disorders.

2026 Kavli Prize in Neuroscience

Chairs of the Kavli Prize Committees
Per Barth Lilje, Chair of The Kavli Prize Committee for Astrophysics
Mari-Ann Einarsrud, Chair of The Kavli Prize Committee for Nanoscience 
Edvard Moser, Chair of The Kavli Prize Committee for Neuroscience 

Learn more about the Kavli Prize Committees:

The 2026 Kavli Prize Committees

Feature: Internationally recognized scientists helm 2026 selection committees for The Kavli Prize