LMU chemist Dirk Trauner builds photoresponsive molecular switches thatenable nerve-cell receptors to be controlled by light. In this way,nerve-cell activity can be switched on and off at will – in the laboratory.“But,” he says, “we hope that our research can be translated into medicalapplications.” In that case, Trauner’s strategy could provide a means ofcompensating for the loss of photoreceptors in the retina – one of the mostprevalent causes of blindness – or lead to more effective and less stressfulforms of cancer chemotherapy.